Chasseur

Vintage: 2006
Producer: Chasseur
Appellation: Sonoma Coast
Grape : Chardonnay

On My Palate:

Rich and ripe. Sweet tropical fruit—pineapple and banana—wrapped in overpowering vanilla.

Vitamin minerality (Flintstones!) and lemon cream mush the rich, creamy mouth feel.

A whore of a wine. suck it till it’s dry. Love it while it (or you) lasts, and then forget about it. Easily. You’ll remember your headache the next day more.

The Dregs:

Sonoma coast is unanimously the next great burgundy varietal wine frontier. The maritime influence, the enormity of the appellation itself, and the abundance of south-exposed slopes have created a mini “wine rush.”

This is the beauty of California. Everywhere you look, there is new, undeveloped terroir and a plethora of vinous entrepreneurs ready to exploit it.

With the above in mind, I let myself be fooled by chasseur. The wine’s marketing package points towards purchase—a “French” winery producing France’s noble grape in California’s next-to-be-noble Pinot terroir.

William Hunter, winemaker and majority owner of Chasseur, is, indeed, smitten with Burgundy. No, not enough to move to the Côte d’Or to put a couple harvests under his belt, but enough to slap a French name ("chasseur" means "hunter" in French) on his winery when his dreams of an eponymous winery were unrealizable (Hunter was already taken).

According to the Chasseur website, the name does inform the winemaking principles. “Chasseur winery is dedicated to small lot, hand-crafted wines in the old French tradition.” In reality, the wine is over-extracted and whorish. There is nothing traditional or french about it.

The Sonoma Coast is special—the brooding north Pacific Ocean, battered coastline, and tug-o-war between fog and sunshine—so should be its wine. If I wanted a piña colada, I’d drive down to Rosarito and order one, beachside.

Where:

At home with potato-carrot-leak soup and ham-wrapped endives topped with béchamel.