Chardonnay from Tuscany??? Well, apparently: as this gorgeous IGT in front of me will prove. Initial brilliant fresh apple and pear breathes out to much more classic butteriness and round melon. Extremely light golden in the glass, crystal-clear with glowing green tones. Chillingly toasty, steely at the core, showing creamy cellar & barrel nuances pulling both Chablis and California into minds-eye. Near perfection for the variety.
Tasting it brings just about everything you’d want in a young Chard. Cool and restrained on entry, the flash of fruit starting bright and fresh, crescendoing across the palate as spirit and depth grow alongside a creeping tide of green, weedy herbaceous-ness. Sweet and vivacious while playing elegantly demure to extremes, steely mineral offering brushy respite, it offers the yin & yang ALL great wines (should) do. You can’t pinpoint exactly where the firm fruit succumbs to lees-y butter, or where the shards of acid give way to expanses of sunlit mowed grass. The transitions effortlessly integrated in layers of complexity offering sweet & bitter, savory & sharp: all in carefully measured doses from masterful–or maybe just hands-off–cellar-work. The tannins are green and peppery following the robust center and cheerful attack.
This is not a cheap Chardonnay–unlike most of the biancos we see here in America. It’s priced up there with the finest examples from SLH, SRH, Carneros, RRV and Oregon. You can’t even buy it in the US, actually–but I thank my large international following for the opportunity to experience wines such as this. If it’s available where you live, FIND IT.
2020 IN SERRATA ‘Intrigo’ Chardonnay Bianco Toscano IGT Italy 14.0
Stephen McConnell 