Stony Hill Vineyard | Collector's Notes of Stony Hill Vineyard wine

As an extraordinary birthday gift for my husband, Peter, old family friends here in the Napa Valley and longtime collectors of our wines, invited us to dinner to taste twenty vintages of Stony Hill Chardonnays, beginning with the 1964. Here are notes on each of the wines, combining comments from Peter, Mike Chelini, myself, and various other participants. Since our own cellar contains only a smattering of older vintages, this evening presented us with the very special opportunity to revisit the past and pay tribute to Fred McCrea, who set the standard for Chardonnays in California, and to Mike, who has admirably carried on the winemaking tradition at Stony Hill.

	1964 Chardonnay Light straw color. Great fresh fruit; a bit creamy and lemony with a hint of butterscotch character. A velvety feeling in the mouth. Seems much younger than the 1974. All free run juice.
	1965 Chardonnay Straw color. Very bold, French-like wine; perfectly balanced, pure Chardonnay fruit. Complex nuances of mineral and subtlest hint of oak.
	1967 Chardonnay Medium gold color. Creamy nose. Vanilla character. Has lost its fruit but hasn't developed nutty or spicy qualities that would make it an interesting older wine. Fully evolved.
	1968 Chardonnay Medium straw color. Bold, very French mineral quality, earthy complexity. Good fruit and balance.
	1969 Chardonnay Light gold color. Low in acid making it a little flat. Compared to the 1967 it lacks the creamy, vanilla notes that give that wine character.
	1970 Chardonnay Light gold color. After the somewhat thin 1969, this is a real mouthful. Lighter in character, honey nose, yum. Somewhat low in acid and slightly sweet.
	1971 Chardonnay Medium straw color. Light honeyed nose. Perfectly balanced with good acid. Very rich; shows age.
	1972 Chardonnay Medium straw color. A little thin compared with the 1973 and 1974 vintages.
	1973 Chardonnay Medium straw color. Peppery, spicy nose. Delicate fruit. Softer than the 1974. Appealing rich sweetness. Big crop.
	1974 Chardonnay Vanilla, butterscotch, honey nose. Spicy tasting, good acid, lingering aftertaste.
	1975 Chardonnay L ight gold color. Leesy quality in the nose. Has good acid, but doesn't have the finesse of the '76. Opened up in the glass.
	1976 Chardonnay Medium straw color. High in acid (.82 TA). Tart and lean with rich fruit. A drought year.
	1977 Chardonnay Pale color. Lean wine with deep mineral quality. Good acid balance. Another drought year.
	1978 Chardonnay Medium gold color. Flat and sweet rather than lean and tart. First year with fair amount of young grapes. New press.
	1979 Chardonnay Medium color. This vintage from a young crop. Subdued, not a lot of richness. Tart, fairly complex, not interesting.
	1980 Chardonnay Gold color. Lacks fruit; shows age.
	1981 Chardonnay Light in color. Fresh and lively. Creamy, fruity, good acid. Field #5 was 9 years old in 1981 giving more mature fruit than in the late 1970s.
	1983 Chardonnay Medium straw color. Good acid, fresh, light, but hasn't developed depth and richness of '81. Compared with a bottle of 1983 we tasted in February which we found flat and without interest, this wine was alive and well.
	1984 Chardonnay Medium gold. Little fruit character left; hasn't developed a spicy character. Mellow, smooth, shows some age but imminently drinkable.
	1985 Chardonnay Dark gold color. Lacking in fruit. Not typical of older Stony Hill Chardonnays. Very rich and heavy.

All in all, we favored the wines that still showed fruit or had developed a spicy, nutty character instead, were still lean and tart rather than fat and soft, that showed a French-like mineral quality, which we trace back to our budwood which originally came from the Chablis region of Burgundy in France. Our favorites: 1964, 1965, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1977, 1981, 1983. Our least favorites: 1967, 1969, 1972, 1980, 1985.