Product Description:

"Kistler Chardonnay is made using traditional French techniques, with the winemaker himself performing the cellar work on the wines. Kistler Chardonnay has a distinct character. It is completely barrel-fermented using indigenous and cultured yeasts, is aged in 50% new French oak barrels unracked and in contact with all its fermentation lees, has undergone a malolactic fermentation, receives minimal handling and processing, and is bottled unfiltered and, generally, unfined after 11-18 months of barrel age. Our low-yielding (pruned and thinned to yield about two tons per acre) Pinot Noir vineyards in the Russian River Valley and the Sonoma Coast contain a mixture of clones from French and American sources. The Pinot Noir is made with an initial extended cold maceration of the grapes with their juice (for the extraction of concentrated flavors without tannin), followed by a traditional Burgundian fermentation in small, open-top fermenters. Total cuvaison time is up to four weeks and the wine is aged in 100% new French oak barrels for 14 months before being bottled unfined and unfiltered." -Winery