Chateau Souverain North Coast California Chardonnay

Description

Chateau Souverain Chardonnay has inviting aromas of roasted pears, lemon citrus and subtle baking spice with elegant layers of pineapple and cre8me brfble9e flavors. This full-bodied Chardonnay offers a plush texture and balanced acidity with a long, flavorful finish.

Producer Description

The history of Chateau Souverain begins with our founder, J. Leland Stewart, who was born in California in 1905. Stewart's mother came from the Leland family (founders of Stanford University), while his father was a businessman from Scotland. A man of the people, J. Leland was never comfortable with the pretension of the name 'Leland' and all that came with it. So he simply called himself Lee.Lee was a trendsetter, opting to grow grapes rather than the predominant crop of the day-prunes. He became an advocate of clean winemaking practices and was among the first in California to concentrate on single-varietal, estate-style wines. He was among the first in California to concentrate on single-varietal, estate wines; introducing Petit Sirah as a varietal, and taking a page from the French by insisting that Chardonnay be fermented in oak rather than stainless steel. Lee shared his knowledge with the small winemaking community in Napa that informed such esteemed contemporaries as the Mondavi Brothers, Jack Davies of Schramsberg, Brother Timothy of Christian Brothers Winery and Andre9 Tchelistcheff at Beaulieu.In the years that followed, Lee Stewart used innovation, a commitment to precision and craftsmanship and his natural gift for winemaking to establish Chateau Souverain as one of the great California wineries. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lee's Cabernet Sauvignon helped to estab-lish Napa Valley as the cradle for the varietal outside of France.