1997 Joseph Swan chardonnay, Estate vineyard, Sonoma
Friends invited us over for baked halibut with a lemongrass curry sauce on rice, and I was about to reach for a riesling when I spied this bottle of old California chardonnay. Riesling would have been the better food match, but this was going to be a great opportunity to both use up this bottle and give our friends an unusual chardonnay experience. Hazy orange-gold color. Nose of almonds, canned pears and old carpet. Peachier on the palate with a bit of Danish pastry and a dash of Madeira. Very little acid left, but there was this sense of faded glory about it nonetheless and this was a fitting way to bid adieu to a case of great bottles we'd nursed over a decade.