2003 Chardonnay Rincon Vineyard

.The Talley family's sprawling estate lies mostly in ArroyoGrandeValley, but stretches to the west into EdnaValley (their Stone Corral Vineyard, featuring 28 acres planted to pinot noir, and a block called Oliver's, are technically in Edna Valley).Vineyards on the EdnaValley side see higher afternoon temperatures and lower nighttime lows than Talley's vines in Arroyo Grande, according to winemaker Steve Rasmussen, even though the two sets of vineyards are just a couple miles apart as the crow flies.Rasmussen, who has made the Talley wines since the beginning, barrel-ferments the chardonnays and bottles them between August and December of the following year.The pinots generally get 17 or 18 months in barrel.Rasmussen told me that 2003 brought a short crop that made the harvest more difficult to work.Some of the riper notes of 2003 come from shot berries picked at the beginning (berries without seeds generally ripen faster), but the lion's share of the estate's wines came from a second pass two to three weeks later, Rasmussen told me."The vintage featured uneven ripening, and we feared getting underripe/overripe flavors," he explained."The fruit must come first in my wines," Rasmussen asserted, implying that a couple of the 2003 pinots were a bit atypically low-toned and roasted for wines from this estate.But they are creamy and mouthfilling.