Walter Hansel Family Vineyards Cuvee Alyce Chardonnay 2021 (750ml)

 

Rated 94 Points by Vinous

 

The 2021 Chardonnay Cuvée Alyce is a classic Stephen Hansel wine.  It offers notable richness but also a great deal of transparency.  Hansel blends two variations of Wente Clone Chardonnay (Hyde and Hudson) with some clone 76 for his Cuvée Alyce, a Chardonnay that exudes class.

 

Walter Hansel Chardonnay Cuvee Alyce

 

Russian River Valley 2021

 

Cuvee Alyce Chardonnay tends to offer big, rich, and "over the top" flavors.

Winemaker Notes

 

Vintage:  2021

 

Varietal:  Chardonnay

 

Appellation:  Russian River Valley

 

Alcohol:  14.4%

 

The Story

 

Alyce was my Mom and she was the life of the party.

 

Produced from the highest elevation and is a product of 3 clones; the Hyde/wente; the Hudson/wente and French Dijon clone 95.  These clusters are extremely small and the berries are the size of BB's; offering rich and flavorful wines.  My Mom, Alyce, was an exciting Lady with over-the-top energy and appeal.  This wine takes after her.

 

All of our pinot noirs and chardonnays are estate grown; our Sauvignon Blanc is produced from a vineyard owned and farmed to our specifications by our vineyard manager and his father.

 

 

Walter Hansel Winery

 

Hansel Family Vineyards

 

Russian River Valley

 

Walter Hansel was a lifelong wine enthusiast who had the vision to plant his estate's original 250 vines in 1978.  Today, Stephen, Walter's son, has taken up where his father left off, pursuing his vision of producing world-class Burgundian-styled Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, all from the Russian River Valley.

 

Steve Hansel's friend, famed winemaker Tom Rochioli, helped him in the early stages of his wine education by inviting him to work a couple of harvests at the Rochioli vineyards.  Steve performed his first solo attempt in 1996 out of his garage.

 

At Walter Hansel Winery, the emphasis is on low yields (a miniscule range from 1.5 to 2.7 tons/acre) for greater complexity.  Since all their grapes are grown on their own property, they can exercise strict control in the vineyards, which are planted with 5 Pinot and 5 Chardonnay clones.  Each clone was chosen for its specific acid and flavor variations.

 

All of Steve's fruit is hand-harvested, and it is re-examined again at the winery.  Hansel makes an average of 9 total passes through each vineyard.  Each pass is time consuming and expensive but Stephen feels the vine rewards him with more concentrated flavors.

 

The winery uses only natural yeast during fermentation.  Fining and filtration are minimal.  The Pinots are held on the lees without racking for 12 months.  The Chardonnays are whole cluster fermented and gently pressed to extract the juice.  The cooperage varies from year-to-year, cuvée-to-cuvée, but none of the wine is aged on entirely new oak.  One- and two-year-old barrels are always employed.

 

“My father, Walter, loved to grow everything from kiwi to oriental pears and more.  In the 1970's he enlisted my help to plant 257 chardonnay vines.  Throughout the 1980's our entire family would harvest the half acre of grapes and my father and I would make the wine; filling two barrels, which equaled 50 cases of wine.

 

Initially these wines were hard to drink, but with the help of my friend, Tom Rochioli, I developed a passion to understand everything about the vineyards and the process of making wine.  This passion influenced my quest for growing World-class wines.

 

Since our first commercial vintage in 1996, I have learned with every harvest that you must listen to vine; react to Mother Nature and ALWAYS compromise quantity for quality.”

 

Wine Making Process

 

Our processes are done in a way that each wine is allowed to express its unique character; never compromising the wine's freshness, finesse or texture.

 

We hand harvest and manually sort; once in the vineyard and once in the winery.  The Pinot Noir is destemed and gravity guides the whole berries into open topped fermenters.

 

The Chardonnay is whole-cluster pressed into French oak for fermentation.  The primary fermentation lasts 2-3 weeks and the maloactic fermentation can last until early spring of the next year.

 

Every vineyard block is traced from the harvest bins to the barrel to the settling tank before bottling.

 

Our Vineyards

 

Although we started with just 257 vines we currently farm 80 acres consisting of a total of 11 different clones.  All of our vineyards are contigous to each other with the winery facility situated in the center, making farming, harvesting and processing more efficient and easier to control quality.

 

We farm about 80 acres consisting of 6 pinot noir clones and 7 chardonnay clones, planted to 2 varieites of rootstock and trellisted in a 7 wire system that provides for a 4 to 5 foot canopy.  We offer single clone and blended clone vineyard designated wines; all crafted to provide a variety of flavors.

 

Vineyard practices vary each year as we attempt to spar with Mother Nature, however, in general:

• We pull leaves on the Eastern side and allow a full canopy on the Western side; this provides the clusters direct cool morning sun with afternoon shade.
• We employ numerous weather stations and soil probes which provide data so we can minimize our organic spray routines and monitor the use of water.
• We control the yields by cluster thinning; we typically thin to 10-15 clusters per vine for pinot noir and 18-22 for chardonnay.
• We net the vines in the middle of August to protect from bird damage.
• All in all, we make 12 to 15 passes each year through the vineyard touching each and every vine.