Signorello Hope's Cuvee Napa Chardonnay 2014
Concluding a real estate transaction, Linda and I had an intimate mini-celebration dinner at home on the deck. I pulled from the cellar this premium Napa Valley Chardonnay for the occasion as a pairing with the roasted chicken with haricot verts, carrots and mashed potatoes.
Signorello Hope's Cuvee Napa Valley Chardonnay 2014
At that time I wrote about this label: "I am predominantly a red wine drinker and while I enjoy an occasional glass of white, most often with appropriate food, I don't normally get excited about a white wine. This chardonnay was the exception, memorable and special."
As part of proper cellar management, we pulled from our cellar the oldest vintage release in our collection of the multiple vintages we hold of this label. I had set this bottle aside over the weekend to open with Sis Pat in town since she was with us when we visited the winery (shown below), but we didn't get to it.
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| (Former) Signorello Estate overlooking vineyards and valley floor. |
The Signorello winery sits at the very southern end of Napa Valley and has 43 acres of vineyards, including some
of the oldest Chardonnay vines in all of Napa Valley - fruit from 37-year-old
vines goes into his Hope’s Cuvée.
The magnificent Estate
was destroyed in the fires that engulfed much of sections of Sonoma
and Napa in 2017. Fires came down the foothills to the property that sat up the
hill back from the highway.
The fire reached the winery and completely destroyed the hospitality center that also housed offices, a wine lab and a family residence upstairs. The adjacent crush pad and stainless steel tanks survived intact along with the barrel cellar and equally if not most importantly, the vines of the adjacent vineyards.
In the wake of the destruction from Napa Valley’s October 2017 Atlas Peak Fire, Ray Signorello (Jr) vowed to rebuild. We're relieved to read about the Phoenix of Signorella Estate, rising from the ashes, literally, and being rebuilt, even grander and larger than before. Signorello said he viewed the tragedy as an opportunity to do something new and exciting and is rebuilding with a larger fermentation facility, wine caves and a stunning expanded hospitality center.
The winery has kept almost all of its team employed as an interim step toward returning to normalcy and they have been operating out of a modular building was brought in to serve as a temporary hospitality center.
The adjacent Darioush
property nearby that sits at the valley floor closer to the highway and
similarly situated properties were untouched.
Signorello "Hope's Cuvée" Napa Valley Chardonnay 2014
The 2014 Chardonnay Hope’s Cuvée is crafted from a selection of the best lots and barrels sourced from the thirty-five year old vines on the 5 acre estate vineyard in front of the winery overlooking the valley floor. There were 379 cases produced of this wine, which went through 44% malolactic and was aged in 56% new French oak.
This is one of the few Chardonnays that we keep in our cellar that is vastly predominantly red wines. This was delicious and most likely at the apex of it's drinking profile, but likely not to improve from further aging, so time to drink up. The fill level, label, foil and most importantly, the cork were all pristine, in ideal condition, still wrapped in the tissue packaging, we acquired this bottle upon release and have held it in our cellar for nearly a decade.
Bright golden yellow colored, medium-full bodied, rich, textured, round fruits, hints of butterscotch and peach accented by honeysuckle, nut, stone, and what Parker calls "plenty of orange blossom, lemon custard and crushed rock notes. It is certainly very Burgundian and almost like a grand cru from the village of Puligny-Montrachet," with a long flavorful lip-smacking finish.
RM 94 points.
https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2232077
https://www.signorelloestate.com/
@SigVin
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