It has been a busy wine time here at the house and the quarterly shipment from A Taste of Monterey arrived and it took a couple of days, even to open up the carton.  We have been getting shipments from this club since we discovered them on our first holiday at Carmel-by-the-Sea and we went to eat at the legendary Sardine Factory in Monterey.  Between the meals, art and wine it was a very expensive, but very enjoyable trip for us.  The gallery tried to buy the art work that we bought, a couple of years later, but we like it hanging in our living room, so that everyone can see it, we then walk into the house.   We signed up with the Private Reserve Club, which come quarterly, they have other clubs that come monthly, but they are more popular price and we really wanted to get some wines that we would not encounter otherwise. 

Wrath Estate Winery is located in Soledad, California and they are a winery where production is limited, but not the quality, and since we have been there, they have opened a satellite tasting room in downtown Carmel.  We have had at least a half dozen different wines from Wrath Wines over the years.  The winery produces Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah, Falanghina and Sauvignon Blanc from their estate vineyard and some very respected private vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands.  Wrath Wines has contracts with McIntyre Vineyard, which was planted in 1973 and has the oldest Pinot Noir vines in the Santa Lucia Highlands.  The Doctor’s Vineyards also in the Santa Lucia Highlands grows eleven different clones of Pinot Noir on one-hundred-ninety-three acres, forty-five acres of five different clones of Syrah and almost five acres of Malbec.  The Tondre Grapefield started in 1997 with six and a half acres in the heart of the Santa Lucia Highlands and is now one-hundred acres dedicated to Pinot Noir.  Th KW Ranch is also in the Santa Lucia Highlands and was planted in 2000 and dedicated to Pinot Noir and Syrah.  The Alta Loma Vineyard was planted in 2000 and is two-hundred-forty-six acres of biodynamically certified Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Grenache.  The last of the private vineyards that Wrath Wines contracts with is the Boekenoogen Vineyard, which went from a fifth-generation cattle ranch to becoming a vineyard in 1998 and growing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah. 

The Wrath Wine Fermata Chardonnay 2015 is from the Wrath Estate San Saba Vineyard in a nook of property just below the Santa Lucia Highlands.  The property is known for having very little rain, cool temperatures and one of the longest growing seasons in the world.   “Fermata” is Italian for halted, because after the primary fermentation, the malolactic fermentation is halted at the half-way point to keep the wine precise according to their information.  The wine is then aged for ten months in French Oak, of which twenty percent is new, and then after bottling, the wine is aged for a year, before being released.  The production for this wine was just above six-hundred cases with a cellaring potential of six to eight years.  The wine promises to have bright acidity from the halting process and a nose featuring lemon and lime, to toast and crème Brulee.  The finish is layered and offering some good terroir.  I have never been disappointed with any of the selections that I have received from Wrath Wines.