Lobstah, Buttah & Chard

Came home to a bit of a surprise dinner tonight. Boo had hit Costco and brought home a couple of lobster tails. Only seemed natural to me to break out the melted butter and the Chardonnay.

1182. 2009 Church & State Chardonnay (VQA Okanagan Valley)

Granted, regular readers will know that I'm not the most enthusiastic Chard drinker out and about. All the same, I'm hardly an ABC ("Anything But Chardonnay") kind of guy. Heck, we even have the stemless Chardonnay glasses on the shelf for when duty calls. I'm just not a huge fan of the big, heavy, overly oaked wines that were everywhere for awhile.

The Church & State bottle doesn't shy away from that New World style but the oak is more restrained. I'd picked this bottle up last year during the BC Wine Appreciation Society's annual bus tour. We made a stop at the gorgeous new Church & State facility on Black Sage Road and our taste of the Chard there obviously impressed me enough to throw some into my basket.

In addition to liking the wine's balance of richness with bright acidity, I like that the back label provides all sorts of information that calls out to wine geeks like me: the grapes came from two of the winery's vineyards (Gravelbourg and Coyote Bowl) and were picked in October 2009; the soils consist of sand and gravel; the wine was aged in French oak, a third of it being new; and only 722 cases were made. I could ask a few more questions but this is more info that I'd normally hope to find without a whack of research.

If recollection serves, I grabbed a number of other Church & State wines that day. No doubt, I'll be adding a few more to The List in the not too distant future - and likely a lot sooner than I'll be coming home to lobster again.