Score: 89/100
While attending the Wine Bloggers Conference earlier this month (August 2016), I had the pleasure of being given a bottle of wine from a famous California winery: Rodney Strong.
Rodney Strong was a major sponsor of the 2016 Wine Bloggers Conference in Lodi. Having been awarded the scholarship to be able attend the conference, I must thank them for their support.
Today’s wine review is of a Sauvignon Blanc wine from a vineyard Rod Strong established in 1971. He named it Charlotte’s Home in honor of his wife.
This vineyard remains the core of this Charlotte’s Home Sauvignon Blanc, along with other select estate vineyards in the Alexander Valley as well as the Russian River Valley and Dry Creek Valley, hence the ‘Northern Sonoma’ indication on the label.
Twitter Buzz about Charlotte’s Home Sauvignon Blanc’s Label
Judging by the label…
Charlotte's Home seems a nice place to live in!
Sauv Blanc #wine by @rsvineyards#winelover pic.twitter.com/cQL1Tn83gJ— Julien Miquel #Wine (@JMiquelWine) August 22, 2016
Tasting Notes:
The wine comes in a bright quite intense yellow color. No green here, pure lemon yellow.
Nose is firstly fresh with citrus notes (lemon, lime and a touch of sweet grapefruit) dominating and setting the fresh fruit party up with your senses.
Tropical fruits are also there bringing in appealing aromatic sweetness, while there’s some underlying grassiness too underlining a petrol character, like bison grass. Some sort of sticky tarry grass notes.
Palate is fresh and zesty too, with a good but not aggressive acidity. It’s well balanced by an enjoyable oily texture, some perceivable residual sweetness, and mid-body. The whole with its touch of grassiness, tropical flavors (pineapple and solid passion fruit that is so typical of Sauvignon Blanc), and a wealth of estery notes (fresh pear) makes for a lively and joyful explosion of fruit flavors.
The finish is long though a little on the heavy side with petrol and sulfuric flavors sticking in to the mainly tropical ones after you’ve tasted.
Overall
A well-made exuberant Sauvignon Blanc like we expect and like them; with plenty of fruit explosivity and complexity from a wide spectrum of flavors.
Well balanced, fresh, concentrated and zesty. For lovers of citrus fruit and intense aromatic profile wines with a petroleum edge underlining this Sauv Blanc’s mineral personality.
Please let me know your thoughts