SUPERIOR WINE ALERT!:

We may not feature many white wines, but when we do, you can be assured that they are truly something special .

Exclusive Alert!:

This wine is off the market, but we got our hands on a final allocation. How? We can’t tell you. Our secret is your reward.

FREE SHIPPING ALERT!:

For today’s incredible Carneros Chardonnay, enjoy Free Shipping on orders of 6 or more bottles, using coupon code NAPASPY

Mission Codename: Do you know the way to Chardonnay?

Operative: Agent White

Objective: Return to Operative favorite, Merryvale, this time to recover a exclusive allocation cache of their fabled Carneros Chardonnay

Mission Status: Accomplished!

Current Winery: Merryvale Vineyards

Wine Subject: 2006 Carneros Chardonnay

Winemakers: Sean Foster and Larry Cherubino

Backgrounder: Carneros Chardonnay is now revered for its quality, elegance and smoothness. The Carneros viticultural area, a winegrowing region which straddles the Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley, has been a great source of wine that we have featured here. Always, those wine have been of supreme quality. The cool Carneros region provides ideal growing conditions for Chardonnay and Chardonnay literally thrives there. Merryvale is a Wine Spies favorite and we are proud to bring you today’s special exclusive wine. Read Agent Whites’s tasting notes and mission report to learn more about this great Chardonnay

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Bright golden yellow with perfect clarity and glistening edges, with fat legs that take forever to emerge before the move slowly down the glass

Smell – Wonderfully expressive and bright with tropical fruit, citrus, peach, mango, soft spices, soft white flowers.

Feel – Terrific mouthfeel that is round, light and smooth up front, then softly grippy and dense at the edges of the mouth and mid-palate as soft tannins gently take hold

Taste – Bright and fruity with layers of fruit. Green apple, pineapple, pear, starfruit and softest nutmeg are present here

Finish – Long and lush, flavors and aromas taper off in equal proportion with a slight dryness and a light flinty minerality that makes your mouth water

Conclusion – This is a great Chardonnay from Merrvale and we are proud to have gotten our hands on their final cases. We don’t feature many Chardonnay’s here, but when we do, you know that we are really taken by them. Today’s wine is lush and full, with great expressive aromas and flavors. No flab or overly buttery Chard here. Rather, this is a wine that is richly structured and long on character. Merryvale took their time with this wine, tsarting with tender care of the grapes in their vineyards. At harvest, the grapes for this wine are meticulously sorted. The vinification regimen was also a labor of love, with the wine spending 15 months in French Oak, the first seven primary lees. The wine was stirred monthly until it was carefully blended, then went on to spend and additional 10 months, unstirred, on light lees. The care with which Merryvale shines through in each of its wine creations – particularly with today’s great Chardonnay.

Mission Report:

[What follows is my original mission report, in which Agent Red first infiltrated Merryvale]

Merryvale hosts their own ‘Wine Component Tasting’ seminar every Saturday & Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. The fourth weekend of every month is Merryvale’s ‘Food & Wine Pairing’ seminar.

These events provided me with the perfect opportunity for some close surveillance of this respected winery. I wasted no time and signed up for both, which actually proved to be not only deeply informative from a Wine Spies intel-gathering perspective, but also from a wine drinker’s perspective. The two events were also great fun and the Merryvale winery is amazing!

The Wine Spies strive to have a low impact on the environment, but Merryvale takes this sort of responsibility to an extreme. Wherever possible, The Wine Spies use earth-friendly materials such as pulp wine shippers and recycled packing materials. We drive hybrid spy cars, keep office lights dimmed or turned off during the day and we recycle relentlessly. Merryvale does all of these things – and way more.

On arrival at the Merryvale Vineyards facility, the first thing that I noticed were the seemingly acres of solar panels covering the rooftop of their 60,000 foot building.

Once inside for the morning component tasting, I learned that Merryvale completed the installation of its 277kW solar electric system in 1996, before being green was chic.

The solar array generates enough clean electricity each day to power nearly 80 homes and will spare the air nearly 473 tons of harmful greenhouse gases annually. Over the next 30 years, the air pollution saved will be equivalent to driving over 32 million miles.

The winery’s solar system will provide 90-100% of the winery’s electricity needs on an annual basis for the company’s 60,000 square foot building.

Merryvale’s foremost reason for installing the array is to utilize green energy. This is an effort that we applaud and one that we are happy to be seeing at more and more wineries these days.

The component tasting and the pairing seminar were both exceptional and I recommend these for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of wine. While the winery and the classes were great, far more impressive are Merryvale’s incredible wines.

Winery Location:

The Merryvale Vineyards winery can be seen in this satellite photo.