Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/76623
MORE ABOUT CHARDONNAY! Odyssey An of Time and Terroir I TALLEY'S CHARDONNAYS PROVE AGE-WORTHY AS WE COMPARE NOTES ON ONE ESTATE VINEYARD OVER AN 18-YEAR SPAN just tasted an 18-year-old Chardonnay from the Arroyo Grande appellation on California's Central Coast. The wine was a Talley Chardonnay, and this 1994 was the first vintage of a single-vineyard wine made from the estate: Rosemary's Vineyard. Lean and focused, it offered such a soft oak tone that it sighed with caramel and cleansed with lemon flowers. Talley Vineyards is situated in Arroyo Grande, but also farms vineyards just "over the hill" in Edna Valley, where it gets warmer in summer and dramatically cooler in winter, according to Brian Talley. Talley celebrated his 25th anniversary of winemaking last year, and as a retrospective tie-in, set up a series of tastings for somms and media to calculate the positive aspects of his Chardonnays from 1994 to present. Rosemary's Vineyard is comprised of 29 acres that just about surround The 2001 Talley Rosemary's Vineyard Chardonnay was ahead of its time stylistically. Rosemary Talley's home. Approximately seven miles northeast of the Pacific, it is the coolest of the four vineyards owned and farmed by the Talley family. Highlighted in the Talley 2001 Rosemary's Vineyard Chardonnay was the persistent mineral- ity, making for a leaner style of Chardonnay that, like a crystal ball, was a beacon of lightness that presaged a Chardonnay style more revered by today's buyers. And fast forward to Talley 2007 Rosemary's Vineyard Chardonnay which, with an internal lemon zing and citrus petals, has evolved into a rich, sultry and more weighty white with inher- ent stone notes and firm acidity—almost a chalk effect; a true food wine. —Meridith May 74 / the tasting panel / august 2012 Back in the 1980s and '90s, Mike Lynch and Bob Johnson were infamous for their cartoons skewer- ing, lampooning and satirizing the wine industry, published under the LynchBob moniker After a 15-year siesta, the two have reunited to create a new poster for Talley Vineyards.