I have a lot of blogging to do to catch up on everything that we ate and drank last week. But first, we’ll start with one of the recent Bedell Cellars/Corey Creek wines I tasted.
We all know that the ‘reserve’ designation doesn’t have any official meaning, but most of the time, on Long Island anyway, it means barrel fermentation and aging. The ‘regular’ bottlings usually mean more steel fermentation and more use of neutral oak.
Tasted blindly, I thought that Corey Creek Vineyards’ 2006 Chardonnay ($25) was Corey Creek’s ‘reserve’-style wine (which I’ll be writing about later this week). And the price hints at that too I guess. There is a lot more oak here than I’d expect and than I’d prefer.
Pale yellow-gold in the glass, the nose is dominated by vanilla, oak, sweet corn with butter and lemon. The medium-bodied palate offers great texture and acid balance from start to finish, but there is just too much oaky-vanilla character here for me. It overwhelms the apple and lemon flavors on the fore and mid-palate. The lingering, faintly minerally crisp finish is nice though. If you like barrel fermented chard, this is a pretty well made one, but I think there is just too much oak here for a somewhat cooler 2006 year. It’s not a particularly good value either, within the Long Island market and beyond.
Grape(s): 100% chardonnay
Producer: Corey Creek Vineyards
AVA: North Fork of Long Island
Price: $25
Rating: 
(2 out of 5 | Average)