11 Dec Please The Palate Wine of the Week: Seabold Cellars 2018 Rodnick Farm Old Vines Pinot Blanc, Chalone AVA, Monterey County

Pinot Blanc is a white-berry grape that is a mutation of Pinot Noir. It is a versatile grape that can have a roundness of flavor and low acidity. But that is not true of the Seabold Cellars 2018 Rodnick Farm Old Vines Pinot Blanc from the Chalone AVA in Monterey and that is why it is the Please The Palate wine of the week. Seabold Cellars was created by Master Sommelier Christopher Miller. He moved from Los Angeles and established the winery in the Monterey Bay region, sourcing fruit from the Monterey region as well as other cool-climate regions within a few hours to the north and the south. Seabold Cellars focused on small-lot, site-specific Burgundy and Rhone varieties and approaches winemaking with minimal intervention. The Pinot Blanc is sourced from the Chalone AVA, a unique region in Monterey that was created when the San Andrea Fault tore a volcano in half and sent a marine seabed to the top of the mountain. The Pinot Blanc vineyards on Rodnick Farm were planted in the 1970s by pioneer Dick Graff. The vines are head-trained bush vines and the grapes were gentle pressed and racked into neutral barriques where they underwent a natural fermentation, as well as malolactic fermentation. The wine was aged for eight months in barrel and bottled unfiltered and unfined. The Seabold 2018 Pinot Blanc, Rodnick Farm, Chalone AVA has aromas of apple, lemon peel, mandarin and hazelnut. On the palate, the wine has a creaminess but also intensely delicate acidity that showers the tongue. The wine finishes with notes of honeycomb that linger on the palate. Only 53 cases were made of this delicious Seabold Cellars 2018 Pinot Blanc which retails for $45.