2010 Chardonnay Ellen Lane Estate Vineyard

The 2010 Chardonnay Ellen Lane Estate impresses for its length and underlying minerality. Lemon, white flowers, crushed rocks and pears are all woven together in this expressive, nuanced Chardonnay. This is an impressive first effort from young vines planted on the site formerly known as Walker Station. Anticipated maturity: 2013-2018. It is always fascinating to sit down with Paul Hobbs and his winemaker Megan Baccitich, as these Chardonnays and Pinots run the gamut of styles, clones and sites in Sonoma. According to Hobbs, the 2010 harvest was two weeks later than normal, while 2011 was three weeks later than normal! One of the other main differences is that temperatures increased toward the end of 2010, but stayed very much on the cool side in 2011. My impression is that when all is said and done, vintage 2011 will turn out to be superior to 2010 for this range. As always, the Hobbs house style does a very nice job of capturing both textural richness and plenty of site specificity. Tel. (707) 824-9879

The 2010 Chardonnay Ellen Lane Estate emerges from the glass with expressive varietal fruit, butterscotch, smoke and sweet spices. It captures a very nice, stylistic middle ground in the range of the Hobbs Chardonnays in its attractive marriage of fruit and minerality.