Rodney Strong Chalk Hill Chardonnay 2013

If you enjoy Chardonnay from Napa or Sonoma, then you know how challenging it can be to find a complex yet affordable one.  Perhaps this month’s Value Wine No. 2, the Rodney Strong Chalk Hill Chardonnay 2013, might be your solution. Neither overly oaked nor too creamy, the Chalk Hill 2013 manages a rare balance for a Chard in its price range. Eleven months in new and used French Oak provide a complex vanilla and spice quality to offset its hints of blood orange and green apple. A rare lengthy finish provides both richness and acidity that combine to treat its drinker’s taste buds. The Rodney Strong Chalk Hill Chardonnay 2013 retains for $22, but is available on the internet and in big box retailers for perhaps $5 less, and there is no question that this Chard is a terrific value wine for our domestic white wine fans.  Robert Parker of the Wine Advocate was certainly impressed with the Rodney Strong Chard offering, awarding the wine a solid 90 and opining as follows:  “Medium bodied with a hint of wet rock minerality, this pure beauty’s striking style appears to traverse both Chablis and a leaner white Burgundy.”  This Sonoma Valley Chard will pear beautifully with a creamy brie appetizer or a cedar plank salmon entree with equal aplomb.   Chard fans, what are you waiting for?