Chardonnay, Kutch 2016

This focused wine has a beautiful nose of integrated, pungent oak that presents as caramel apple—a quiet richness that complements its delicate layering of Meyer lemon and salty wet stone. The acidity is both fresh and complex, supportive and subtle.

12.5% alcohol. Beautiful stuff, combining sweet ripe pear and apple fruit with some lively grapefruit freshness, and also a subtly smoky, mineral twist. There’s good acidity here, and a slightly bitter twist that offsets the fruit nicely. Complex and beguiling with concentration, balance and finesse. The fruit profile hints at California, but the acid structure and poise is very European. I really like it, and it should age really well. Doesn’t seem to be as overtly reductive as the two previous Kutch Chardonnays.

The 2016 is only the second vintage of chardonnay from Jamie Kutch, and it is a fine follow-up to the debut release. The wine comes in at a cool and collected 12.5 percent octane and offers up a nascently complex bouquet of apple, nectarine, a touch of pink grapefruit, spring flowers, a fine base of soil and a subtle framing of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is crisp, full-bodied and still tightly-knit, with a fine core of fruit, lovely transparency, bright, zesty acids and excellent focus and grip on the long, well-balanced and promising finish. This is already tasty, but the real complexity here is still a bit bound up in the wine’s fine structural elements and I would be inclined to give this a year or two in the cellar and really allow it time to blossom properly. It is a fine, elegant and classy wine in the making. (Drink between 2018-2030)