Nose
The inaugural vintage of our Estate Collection Chardonnay opens
with alluring stone fruit, pear, and gravelly aromas with lifted
notes of honeysuckle and white pepper.
Palate
Creamy on the palate,
this wine displays luscious flavors of fig and lemon curd with
hints of blanched almonds and a toasty oak finish.
Growing Conditions
The Estate Collection is a series of limited-production wines
available only at the Raymond Estate. Sourced from our finest
estate vineyards and longtime vineyard partners, each wine
represents our winemaking team’s commitment to crafting wines
worthy of our five generation winemaking legacy in Napa Valley.
The grapes for our Estate Collection Napa Valley Chardonnay
are grown in our estate vineyard in Jameson Canyon, at the
southern part of the Napa Valley, just east of Carneros. The
grapes spend afternoons in temperatures warmer than the valley
floor, but the mornings and evenings are spent in fog with cool,
marine breezes ultimately helping to evenly ripen the grapes. This
area is ideal for producing Chardonnay with bright acidity and
creamy, citrus flavors.
Winemaking
After whole cluster pressing the grapes, the juice was 100% barrel
fermented with a combination of native and inoculated
fermentation.
Aging
The wine was aged for 8 months in 50% new
French oak with no malolactic to provide true varietal complexity
and a medium-plus body
