September 6, 2019

CARBONE Chardonnay 2018

(Coombsville, Napa Valley, CA) $49

You may not have heard about Carbone Chardonnay yet (this is the first commercial vintage), but you have probably heard of the man who makes it—Andy Erickson. At some point during the last 2 decades, Andy has made many of Napa Valley’s top cabernets—Screaming Eagle, Ovid, Dalla Valle, Staglin, and more. Carbone (car-BONE-ay) is a tiny winery he owns with his wife, the viticulturist Annie Favia. The 30-year-old vines rest in the coolish pockets of Coombsville, the area in southeastern Napa Valley that is an ancient caldera. This is an absolutely delicious chardonnay with exuberant notes of yellow plums, spices, and minerals. Vibrant acidity (no malolactic fermentation here) races through the wine like a subliminal electric current. The balance and length are fantastic. If you love chardonnay, this is a must. (14.2% abv)

93 points KM

Available at ACME Fine Wines

Most of the wine consumed in the U.S. is white wine.

Answer: False.

Yes, false, but just barely. As of 2020, 46 percent of the wine Americans drank was red; 44 percent, white. Interestingly, for most of history, in nearly every wine-producing

country except Germany and Austria, red wines have been more popular than whites. Before the invention of temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks, reds were easier to make in most parts of the world and seemed better suited to hearty meals and the hard physical labor that agriculturally based economies required. But after World War II, white wine consumption soared, particularly in the United States, thanks to changing lifestyles, the drastic reduction in agricultural employment, central air-conditioning, refrigeration, and the dietary shift away from red meat to lighter meats, fish, and vegetables.

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Number of millions of millennials aged 21 to 35 who have stopped drinking wine and other alcoholic beverages according to Wine Intelligence’s US Landscapes 2019 report. The decline is consistent with other recent studies that… Continue reading

CARBONE Chardonnay 2018

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