2015 Walter Hansel Chardonnay Cahill Lane Vineyard
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The 2015 Chardonnay Cahill Lane Vineyard is a terrific wine that brings together the richness of the year with a good bit of nuance and overall complexity. The Cahill Lane impresses for its balance and overall harmony.
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Robert Parker
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
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The 2015 Chardonnay Cahill Lane Vineyard is one of the brighter wines in this lineup, but like all of these Chardonnays, it is built on textural richness and silky mouthfeel. Orange blossom, lemon confit, honey, hazelnut and sweet spices build in this super-expressive Chardonnay from Hansel.
The 2015 season resulted in tiny clusters and small berries with production levels off by a minimum of 25%. The following 2015s will be bottled unfined and unfiltered. The 2015 Chardonnay Cahill Lane is made from 100% Old Wente clone and planted in one of the few areas of his vineyard that has adobe-clay soil intermixed with sandy Goldridge material. The yields tend to be relatively large, so Stephen Hansel crop-thinned by at least 30%. The result is a big, beautiful wine that reminds me of a Corton-Charlemagne. Plenty of deep, poached pear, white peach, nectarine, tangerine oil and caramelized citrus are all present in ths wine that shows virtually no oak, full body and loads of texture. Drink it over the next 7-8 years.