2018 Color & Sound Chardonnay Sonoma County 750 ml

“Someone said, ‘Drink the water, but I will drink the wine.’”

“Who said that?” Alexis asked, quizzing the few of us gathered for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner at her spruced-up farmhouse in Yountville, California. This was well over a year ago, but the responses from that evening continue to haunt some of us.

“Dave Matthews,” was one guess. “Elton John,” was another. “Beastie Boys,” offered VP of Wine Robert Emery, who, to this day, we fondly refer to as a “Beastie Boy,” amidst chuckles. But no one guessed correctly that the answer was Frank Sinatra. “I can’t tell you how many Sinatra lyrics I hear when I pick up a glass of wine,” Alexis explained that night.

We were drinking a lot of white Burgundy. Raising her glassful of Meursault from a reputable producer of Perrières Premier Cru, Alexis offered a challenge instead of a toast: “Make a California Meursault this good so it sings like ‘Autumn in New York,’ my favorite Sinatra song, and so I can serve it next year at all my holiday parties.”

Oh, we love a good challenge. That’s why you’re reading about today’s 2018 Color & Sound Chardonnay—our “California Meursault” love song from Sonoma County. 

It would be a long-shot to craft a Chardonnay as mineral-driven and opulent as that Perrières Premier Cru, but in a surplus year like 2018, bountiful crops turn long-shots into golden opportunities. We made a few calls, and before the end of Thanksgiving week last year, had secured two unimaginably brilliant lots of Chardonnay from California icons—one Robert Parker has raved it’s “virtually impossible to go wrong” with any of their releases, and another from one of Napa’s original stone wineries, a true icon dating back to the 1880s. 

Following a Burgundian script, we barrel-aged the lots separately for four months in one-third new French oak, then blended them together for a final two months prior to bottling. The source winery’s iconic Chardonnays each sell between $60 and $70. Our rendition goes for $25 per bottle.

In the glass, this 2018 Color & Sound—well, why don’t we let Alexis take this one. Alexis experiences wine as shapes, colors, and sounds. Her synesthesia keeps us on the edge of our seats at tastings because the way she describes wine is unlike anything we ever hear or see. We asked her to write a description of our first Color & Sound Cabernet (an under-$30 sellout that’s garnered 4.3 out of 5 stars) and printed it on the back label. 

When we presented Alexis with this 2018 Color & Sound Burgundy-lookalike, it had the immediate effect we all hoped for (how could it not with the marriage of fruit from two California Chardonnay legends?). She tasted and jotted down these descriptors: “Visuals: golden oceans, endless slate skies, spiraling candied clouds, and expansive four-leaf clovers (ya know, Van Cleef & Arpels style). Colors: swirls of burnt-orange, honeycomb, and shimmering, radiant golds. Sounds: I feel like humming ‘On benches in Central Park / Greet autumn in New York / It's good to live it again.’”

So, this holiday season, during your own epic parties, let the others drink the water while you drink Chardonnay from California that easily confuses for a lovely white Burgundy, and costs far less than it should. And play whatever you like—Beastie Boys, Led Zeppelin, Elvis or Sinatra’s holiday albums, Lady Gaga or Tony Bennett, John Legend or John Coltrane. 

Because there’s nothing like the color and sound of a wine that makes you want to sing for your supper. Speaking of, we’d suggest pairing the 2018 Color & Sound Chardonnay with one or more of the following: Provence-herb roast chicken and potatoes, Julia Child’s coq au vin or roast chicken in a port-wine sauce, Thanksgiving turkey and mashed potatoes smothered in homemade gravy, or alongside poached pears in a caramel sauce.