2016 White Bones Chardonnay
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Tasting notes
In the same mold, the 2016 Chardonnay Adrianna Vineyard White Bones is racy and vibrant, with Chablis-like lemon curd, grapefruit, and lime intermixed with plenty of wet stone and salty, marine-like minerality, white flowers, and baking spices. This medium-bodied, lean, austere Chardonnay has terrific character, beautiful balance, and outstanding length. It will benefit from another year or two of bottle age and keep for over a decade.
Critic scores
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Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
The slow ripening provided the 2016 White Bones Chardonnay with a little more structure while retaining very high acidity. The vines, at 1,500 meters in altitude, are planted on limestone-rich soils and didn't need watering in 2016, as it rained a lot more than usual and allowed for a more natural balanced crop. This has 13.1% alcohol and an amazing eight grams of acidity measured in tartaric acid. It's a lot more serious, like an austere version of the 2015, with the balsamic and floral aromas more in the background. It has a sharper palate, with pungent flavors and superb delineation and purity. This is precise like a laser cut, mineral, salty and veeeery serious and compact. Superb! 4,800 bottles were filled in July 2017.
Full, bright yellow-gold with a green tinge. Very sexy mineral accents enliven complex scents of white peach, apple and citrus zest. Wonderfully dense and palate-saturating, with superb mineral-driven acidity giving the wine superb inner-mouth tension and lift, not to mention sharp definition to its flavors of lemon and orange peel, quince and vanillin oak. Like the 2015 White Stones, this is a bit Chablis-like but in a grand cru way. Very long and alive on the aftertaste. Truly exciting Argentine Chardonnay.
About the producer
Bodega Catena Zapata has been instrumental both in the development of fine wine production in Argentina and in realising the full potential of the Malbec grape.