Balletto’s Cider Ridge Vineyard Chardonnay was whole-cluster pressed and barrel fermented with ambient yeasts in French oak, one-quarter new, and the wine aged for 18 months prior to release.
It’s a sunny yellow color and the fragrance is lactic but not overdone—more like fresh cream than butter per se—and shot with citrus and lemon thyme. The body is likewise a balance of roundness and angularity: There is weight from the barrel treatment, which gives it a silken mouthfeel, but it gets a lift of lemon drop and wild herbs, and, at the close, a departing shot of salt.
An elegant but breezy barrel-fermented Chardonnay.
13.1% abv | $38 (sample) 475 cases made
