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Honeysuckle, jasmine and dried orange peel, accented by apricot, vanilla cream and spring flowers. A rich, creamy entry opens onto a generous, structured mid-palate with great drive and intensity, ending in a long, mouthwatering finish.
Available in store
Close100% Chardonnay
Food pairings: Roast chicken, scallops, lobster, creamy pasta sauces, and soft cheeses such as Brie and goat cheese.
Scores:
Winemaking: Under winemaker Robert Fiore, 'Ma Belle-Fille' is fermented entirely with native yeasts and entirely in barrel, in French oak from select artisan coopers. It then ages on its lees for twelve months with weekly bâtonnage and is bottled unfiltered. 2023 began with a wet winter and a cool spring that delayed budbreak by nearly a month. A temperate growing season without major heat spikes let the berries keep their acidity, and harvest ran almost a month later than normal. The winery calls the 2023 a truly special wine from an extraordinary vintage.
Vineyards and terroir: Planted in 1999, Ma Belle-Fille is the highest vineyard on the Peter Michael estate, at 1,700 to 1,900 feet on the slopes of Mount St. Helena in Knights Valley, Sonoma County. It sits above the summer fog ceiling, facing southeast, so it catches the first rays of sun each morning and stays sunny all day. At the same time, a stronger marine influence keeps it cooler, and it ripens earliest of all the estate's Chardonnay vineyards. Its blocks vary in aspect and steepness. The upper mid-slope blocks, at 20 to 30 percent, give richness and depth. The lower mid-slope blocks bring tension and structure. The gentle lower blocks add body and a plush texture. White and gray rhyolitic volcanic tuff lies beneath the vines, and the vineyard is usually picked in as many as seventeen separate parcels.
Family and history: Sir Peter Michael discovered the Knights Valley ranch in 1982. He pledged that the ranch and winery would remain in family hands for 100 years, founded Peter Michael Winery in 1987 and was knighted in 1989. He named this vineyard "Ma Belle-Fille", French for "my daughter-in-law", in tribute to Emily Michael, the wife of his son Paul and mother of the family's third generation. The first 'Ma Belle-Fille' was the 2002 vintage. Today Paul and Emily carry the family vision forward.
In the pictures: Peter Michael's mountain Chardonnay vines in Knights Valley (photo: Peter Michael Winery, via its distributor Skurnik Wines), and Mount St. Helena seen from the Napa Valley side (photo: Oleg Alexandrov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons).
