AROMA: sea spray, green pear, orange blossom
FLAVOR: creamsicle, parmigiano rind, crushed seashell
FOOD PAIRINGS: miso cod, chicken pot pie, stuffed squash blossoms
VINIFICATION: 4.03 tons hand harvested on Sep10th. Chardonnay clones 4 + 76 fermented on native yeasts in neutral 600L puncheons. The wine completed a spontaneous malolactic fermentation, and was aged in barrel for 10 mos. Racked to steel for an additional 6 mos of anaerobic aging. Bottled unfined/unfiltered.
SITE: A deep coastal site in the lee of a forbidden Buddhist monastery. Sits at 700-800ft between the first and second ridge, three miles from the Pacific on an active seismic fault. Soil is strewn with luminescent blue volcanic rock and sandstone. Steep and angular with multiple aspects —all of them lashed by fog and ocean-born wind. Clones 76 and 4 planted in 1999 and farmed Certified Sustainable.
NOTES: Tidal Break sits in the lee of a forbidden Buddhist monastery on the far Sonoma Coast. There are several energy vortexes nearby running along what the locals call "...the tail of the serpent" (aka the spine of the San Andreas Fault). This site has presence. Our rows of Clone 4 are planted on luminescent blue volcanic rock and sandstone. Given the
proximity to a cold sea, this wine is generally as-chiseled and mineral a chardonnay as they come. From the extreme 2022 vintage, we experienced a heat dome bearing down on the state. The fruit came in looking pretty impacted by the sun, and we elected to triage it mercilessly. Most of it was declassified into our Estero Chardonnay. The scarce clusters that did make the grade for our Tidal Break designate were painstaking hand-selected. This wine is exotic in a pleasing way, with an aromatic opulence we've never seen from this site, but the characteristic acidic structure—still very present despite the warm harvest temps—keeps things fresh and mouthwatering.
