Wine and Food

Newton, unfiltered Chardonnay, 2007, Napa County, white wine from the USA

5,5 points

What I really like about wine is the astounding variety. Each region and country has its own particular styles and types. For example, it’s impossible to find anything that really compares to a German Riesling – except perhaps a few select wines from Austria – but I guess everyone would agree that this is something typically German. Also some people like to find comparable to Barolo, which is in itself so strictly Piedmontese, and therefore so Italian. As a European, it is – due to our lack of knowledge – much more difficult to detect all of these differences when we speak of so-called “New World” wines. As soon as you leave the European continent, so-called “New World” wines are encountered much more often, for a variety of reasons: perhaps you are either in a “New World” country, like Australia – or a place where Australian wines are imported since it is either geographically closer and/or more reasonable due to clever marketing campaigns. German wines are not well exported! Firstly, because Germans like to drink their own wines and secondly, why work too hard if you already have your grateful costumers right around you. But also because there isn’t any special marketing or publicity campaign for German wine abroad. Chilean wine, for instance, is very popular in Poland and even there are, of course, great wines from Chile, while those you can get in a normal restaurant or in a supermarket are rather bad. But it is trendy.

I even don’t know if wines of California belong to wines of the “New World” officially, but I put them in this group!

Whenever I’m in Los Angeles, I really like to test Californian wine. It is completely unimaginable that Californian wines in California are so expensive. At almost every place – great restaurant or good store – you can find excellent red wines from Italy and white wines from France which are much cheaper (or call it reasonably-priced) than any interesting American wine. Although I am pretty frequently in the US and I am always intending to build some knowledge of American wines, it is rather difficult since they are so expensive. So far, I do remember some of the wines and winemakers I’ve encountered there, and in the future I will not hold off writing about these, too.

My first American wine in this blog is a Chardonnay of the winemakers Newton. Generally it is really a typical Californian Chardonnay but in my opinion it is really special and perhaps different.

 The wine has a captivating smell and a much sustained taste which is impressive proof of a great balance and quality. It is a very rich wine with flavors of, on one side, flowery honey, caramel and dry apples, and on the other side there is some spiciness, elegant acidity and, of course, the typical smoky and wooden character of any Californian wine. Maybe this wine is the only one I know which even reminds me of a rich fresh orange juice, which hopefully isn’t too strange a description. This one is unfiltered, which makes it a bit more special, as it does require more work in the vineyard. Unfortunately I don’t know the vineyard but I would guess it isn’t in a warm area. The freshness of this vintage 2007 is impressive although everything is unbelievably smooth and soft.

The wine is golden, a bit creamy and it catches you from the first whiff and sip! Delicious.

Many of the American Chardonnays are just too massive and floor everything due to their dominance of aromas. This one will support different foods, in particular a lot of vegetarian dishes I suppose. Yes, thinking about this, it could be a great companion for pumpkin, sweet potatoes, grilled vegetables like paprika or zucchini.

But it is a wine as well which you can just enjoy in front of a fire!

Last but not least: it is too expensive!

Further information you can find at Newton’s website: http://www.newtonvineyard.com/. And if you like to read another review of a wine of Newton that here: https://avdwineandfood.net/2015/09/22/cabernet-sauvignon-newton-2012/