Bachelder Grimsby Hillside North Slopes Starry Skies Chardonnay 2019
Lincoln Lakeshore, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario, CanadaThomas Bachelder is one of Canada's leading chardonnay and pinot noir specialists, honed through time in Bourgogne and Oregon, as well as years in the vineyards of his Niagara home base. Grimsby Hillside is a wild, stony, site out in the far west of Niagara, nestled into the foothill of the Escarpment (122m) in clay, silt, and limestone soils. However, it's likely that this site has many micro fragments of the 4.6 billion year old meteorite that hit the vineyard on September 25, 2009. After a native ferment, this rested in older French oak for around 16 months, sans bâtonnage. Creamy and powerful, with downy lees bedding a textural top tier of pear, green apple, lemon pith, raw almonds, and ample flake salts. So well knit, and complete, with judicious use of wood to expand and relax, through the lingering saline finish. Powerful, cellar-worthy.Tasted: 17 June 2022Tasted by: Prices:
ON
$47.95
750ml
winery direct
Producer: Mary et Thomas Delaney-Bachelder et FillesDistributors: Winery Direct Grape: ChardonnayUPC: 185729000873
Bachelder Grimsby Hillside North Slopes Starry Skies Chardonnay 2019
Lincoln Lakeshore, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario, CanadaGrimsby Hillside illustrates what we see worldwide: places outside the original classic vineyard sites that can be just as special, if not more. North Slope Starry Skies is a delicious chardonnay full of taut, citrus, nutty; mineral notes that way over-deliver for its price. Bachelder describes it as a "strikingly "beautiful 'Big Sky site east of Hamilton... it is cooler and tends to be harvested quite late, retaining a slatey gunflint purity and ethereal freshness with lacey yet weighty texture, finishing with a marked marzipan-inflected minerality." It sits on washed-down Escarpment rubble, giving it a Bench persona. Then there is the 4.6-billion-year-old meteorite that hit Grimsby Hillside in 2009 that Bachelder surmises likely left the farm with fragments of soil much older than anywhere in Niagara. So buy, drink, and enjoy; this is a chardonnay the country should get behind.Tasted: 02 December 2021Tasted by: Prices:
ON
$47.95
750ml
winery direct
Producer: Mary et Thomas Delaney-Bachelder et FillesDistributors: Winery Direct Grape: ChardonnayUPC: 185729000873