Nowhere Left to Hyde (Tasting Mira Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay)

Finding a forgotten Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay in your sample pool is kind of like finding spare change in your couch cushions. Only that spare change adds up to, like, $15,000 or something.

I was recently lucky enough to have stumbled upon a sample of Mira’s Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay 2016 in my cellar, and I will leave it to the reader to determine what it says about me that I’d forgotten about the existence of a Hyde anything sitting in my possession. As usual, I’m going to blame the fact that I have both a teen and a toddler at home.

Anyway, Hyde’s Home Ranch, founded in Carneros on a former cow pasture by an intrepid Larry Hyde in the late 1970s, is a special place for grape growing—especially for Chardonnay, with cooling breezes running through it pretty much like clockwork in the afternoons, mitigating the heat.

Mira’s Hyde Chardonnay block tends to be a naturally low-yielding spot planted with Robert Young clones, and sees some whole cluster pressing and a good amount of time (24 months) in mostly older French oak. It probably doesn’t hurt that they’ve got a 100-point scoring winemaker, Gustavo Gonzalez, leading the charge in the cellar on this one.

2016 Mira Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay, Napa Valley, $95

Only 130 cases were produced of this 2016 Chardonnay, generally considered an excellent one, though more so for Napa’s reds (particularly Cabernet Sauvignon, which was on a 5+ year roll of excellent vintage quality by that point). It’s sporting an absolutely killer nose right now: there’s a an early onslaught of jasmine, lemon blossom, and grilled citrus peel, followed up by waves of lemon meringue, tangerine, mango, yellow peach, yellow apple, and biscuits. The palate is exactly what you’d expect from Hyde, with a deep richness that’s immediately seductive, with toast, bruised apples, ripe pears, grilled peaches, lovely hints of honey, oak, and spices. The finish is toasty and long AF, too. At this stage, it’s soft and just starting to turn a deeper gold. That softness, coupled with its complexity, means it won’t play as nicely at the dinner table, but it would be incredible with the right matches (think lobster).

Cheers!

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