Ferren Wines Lancel Creek Vineyard Chardonnay 2018

Ferren Wines is one of California's hottest boutique Chardonnay producers. Limited. Owner and winemaker Matt Courtney started Ferren after an eight-year apprenticeship with Helen Turley at Marcassin Vineyard and also currently makes the wines at Arista. The wines are made using traditional Burgundian methods without fining or filtration, and native yeasts on the grapes from the vineyards perform fermentations. Matt Courtney was featured in a full page picture in Wine Spectator for their first release and got some great attention. This is on the wine list at the French Laundry, Meadowood, and Solage. previous vintage 99 Points Jeb Dunnuck: "The Chardonnay Lancel Creek Vineyard offers a Chassagne-Montrachet-like bouquet of white flowers, crushed limestone, buttered pineapple, citrus oil, and liquid rock-like minerality. Rich, full-bodied, and beautifully concentrated, it comes close to matching the magical 2016 and is a tour de force in Sonoma Coast Chardonnay that's as good as anything in the vintage. Hats off to winemaker Matt Courtney for another incredible Chardonnay!" Winemaker Matt Courtney founded Ferren with longtime friend David Wherritt after an eight-year apprenticeship with Helen Turley at Marcassin Vineyard on the Sonoma Coast. The wines are made using traditional Burgundian methods without fining or filtration, and fermentations are carried out exclusively by native flora that arrive on the grapes from the vineyards. Lancel Creek Vineyard is perched above the tiny hamlet of Occidental on the remote Sonoma Coast. This secluded, two-acre site was prepared, planted, and is still tended by Ulises Valdez. The pale, off-white Goldridge soil provides just enough nutrients and moisture for these densely planted vines to ripen a small amount of intensely aromatic and flavorful Chardonnay. The vineyard faces the Pacific Ocean, a mere five miles to the west. The combined influence of the cold Pacific and the warming afternoon sun produces a wine of incredible richness and sublime balance. "Ferren should now be at the top of your wine wish list. Courtney only made a few hundred cases to start, and I expect they'll go fast.” - Wine Spectator

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