Hey , welcome , domain Dave . Cheapwinefindercom Another wine review podcast . We do it three times a week . Write a review on CheapWineFindercom , then plug in the microphone and today we've got the La Crema Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2023 . It's a Costco wine . It's a wine that you should be able to find cheapest at Costco , though I saw someone who had a four dollars cheaper . Then Costco did , but most the time it's four dollars more expensive .
Speaker 1Look , prima , that is the best is a . Why would they have a ? They have a estate vineyard in the russian river valley of um , of sonoma and um , but what they do and they have other , they do other wines , but they specialize in chardonnay and pinot noir and some of the elite growing regions in california , like there's all these uh , avas , sonoma , and there's Canaros in the Russian
River and Sonoma Coast , and they even go up into Oregon where they go into the Lamont and that type of thing . And what's interesting about them , since they're doing all these Chardonnays and the Pinot Noir today's just Chardonnay is they have a house style . Is they have a house style ? So , if you get a La Crema Caneros wine and a La Crema Sonoma Coast wine , since the winemaking philosophy is the same , the wines aren't cookie cutters , rakes , ask for different techniques to be used , but it's the same philosophy behind it , the same house style . So you're kind of removing that from the equation and getting the differences of the grapes when you're drinking back to back . The problem with that is most wine shops don't carry more than one , maybe two , but crema wines , so you're going to have to look around to get it . But that would be kind of a fun exercise in learning about chardonnay and what these things are , because sometimes you can have , like a Trader Joe's or whatever , has you know , a San Luis Obispo this or Santa Lucia Highlands , that , and it's different People make it every time and that makes everything different .
Speaker 1I'm going to have a sip of this one . It's a nice blend of citrus
and fruit . It's barrel fermented , which I like to see Most of the time . It's nothing wrong with stainless steel tanks , but you can only get so many liters of wine into a barrel where you can get gallons upon gallons of wine in those tanks . So it's a smaller batch . Again , not that that makes that much difference , because a good winemaker doesn't care , you can do it either way .
Speaker 1But they took the time to to barrel ferment it and then they actually aged another six months in 25 percent french oak and 25 american oak . And when they do those , um , french oak is more subtle and refined . It doesn't give off as much flavor , it's more spices and nuances . And american doesn't give off as much flavor , it's more spices and nuances . And American oak is the crowd-pleasing chocolates and vanilla and the butter and that type of thing they did on-leaves . On-leaves means you keep the dead yeast in with the wine during the aging process and that helps give it a rounded taste . If you stir the leaves , that's batonage , which means stick stirring . Take another sip . Yeah , this is a really solid Chardonnay .
Sonoma Coast is in the mountain valleys right along the Pacific Ocean . Russian River is east . There used to be an overlap between all these different AVAs but they broke it off because it was . The vineyards on the ridge are above the fog line . The ones in the valley are in the fog , which means that the fog has to burn off before the sun gets to them . So they tend to have a much longer growing time because the sun doesn't get to them much . This one , they said , was like 3-4 weeks late , which gave the in Pinot Noir . You love that Chardonnay too . This is more Burgundian than when they have this long growing period . It's only 13.5 in the alcohol , which tells you it's a cool area , because most of the time it's 14.5 . The higher the alcohol rating , the more ripe it gets . So this was a long , cool growing region and a very high-end growing area .
Speaker 1A lot of the wineries in the Sonoma Coast are boutique type ones , really high end . So , just on it . If you're just going to Costco and you want to get yourself a I think it was $15 , $14.99
. You know , for a barrel fermented Chardonnay they do make . They have single barrel wines , single vineyard wines , they have the whole thing . But this is one of their more affordable Chardonnays . It's well worth drinking and if you're going to buy it , get it . If you're near a jewel , it's $11 right now . If you're not , you're looking for a nice , nice upscale , really well-made Chardonnay . Costco's the place to grab it . So that's it for me . Domain Dave cheapwinefightercom . If you like us , if you like our podcast , push the button . You will . It helps and we appreciate it . So , adios , keep it cheap , stay cool , because it's getting warm out there . I think it's going to get a little colder this week , but , adios , I'll be talking .