Easkoot Cellars
Easkoot Scuttlebutt Chardonnay 2015
$ 25.00
Marin County just below Sonoma produces some of the most elegant wines along the California coast due to windy and foggy conditions. This also means low yields and the Devil's Gulch vineyard on Mark Pasternak's farm in Nicasio is a prime example, sometimes producing 2.5 tons to the acre but then dropping down to just one ton in years like 2015, our inaugural vintage. While low yields do produce high quality, there is a limit to how low yields can go without making the entire endeavor an economic impossibility. But this wine was made nevertheless.
Alfred Derby Easkoot was a sailer who settled in Marin County. Scuttlebutt in slang usage means rumor or gossip, deriving from the nautical term for the cask used to serve water (or, later, a water fountain).
Austrian Stockinger oak was used for good structure and restrained oak flavors. Spontaneous fermentation after a highly selective hand harvest and one year elevage on its fine lees.