Surprisingly, we have a fair bit of wine still hanging around in our basement from our very first California wine country trip 3 years ago. This surprises me since it made a move with us, and it especially surprised me since we tend to drink our white wines fairly quickly. But this one somehow slipped through until just the other day. I plucked the 2004 Ferrari Carano Fiorella Chardonnay from its resting place in a styrofoam shipper. We purchased this at the winery in 2006 for $29, it had a real cork closure, and clocked in at 14.1% alcohol by volume.
On the nose I found lemon, spice, yellow apple, coconut, cream, pear, cinnamon, and baking spice. The spices…cinnamon and baking space surprised me, I can’t say I’ve found that on a Chardonnay before. I also liked that while the nose showed some cream, I didn’t find any butter or oak. In the mouth I got apple, pear, lemon on the edges, something tropical, perhaps pineapple, stone fruit, and some butterscotch rounding out the mouth.
Overall, this has held up amazingly well. This got shipped cross-country, lived in the bedroom of our apartment for a year, moved with us, and has now spent two years in our basement and it did not show a single ill-effect from that treatment. I found the wine to be full with some nice tartness left on the fruit. The fruit still tasted fresh! I really enjoyed this wine.
Posted in California, Chardonnay, Ferrari Carano, White, Wine
