Times look tough judging the wine biz from the financial pages of the national news: grape prices are dropping, winery stocks are tumbling, workers are being laid off. Navarro, however, doesn’t sell wine the usual way. Most of our wine is sold directly to Pre-Release and Mailing List members or visitors that drop by our tasting room. The rest is placed on restaurant wine lists, and in Northern California most of that is sold by Jim Greaves, a full time Navarro employee since 1996. Jim’s sales are setting records, especially for the Mendocino Chardonnay. We asked him, "Why?" He responded modestly, "I think savvy restaurant buyers like it on several levels. It has that great balance that is found in higher priced wines. The juice is surely Californian, but it also has that nice Burgundian flavor too. The acids are crisp and it works with food better than a lot of other chards that emphasize ML fermentation. The wine can sit in an ice bin behind the bar, get too cold and it still tastes good." This wine is living proof that big isn’t necessarily better.

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Jim Greaves is Navarro’s salesperson for restaurants in Northern California. According to Jim, it’s not hard to sell Navarro’s Mendocino Chardonnay. The previous vintage has been sold out for months.

A Burgundian barrel is about 60 gallons and are relatively easy to move for cleaning. We use seasoned barrels for the Anderson Valley portion of this wine. The seasoned barrels don’t overwhelm the fruit with oak and since in a prior vintage the wood was inoculated with ML bugs, a secondary fermentation is likely.

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It is a combo of grapes from the cooler Anderson Valley and warmer Potter Valley. Both lots were fermented in oak from Burgundy but only the Anderson Valley portion underwent a malolactic fermentation. We think one reason this wine is a sell out is that our price has remained moderate while we’ve continued to improve the quality. Gold Medal winner.

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