How to find a white wine that makes your hair standup
Matt Dees offers his profound take on white wines and tasting notes for the holidays
Matt Dees had a white Christmas and it will have nothing to do with snow.
Rather, it had everything to do with what was in his wine glass. The uber talented and affable wine maker at The Hilt and Jonata is always on the hunt for white wines brimming with “electricity.”
“Freshness, vibrance and electricity are what I am looking for,” Dees said. “I want something that kind of just makes my taste buds sizzle; makes the hair on the back of my neck stick up a little. I don’t want crazy acidity, I want a dollop of fruit on a wine that is texturally fascinating but also full of pleasure.”
Year-after-year, those are the kind of white wines Dees makes at The Hilt. Its chardonnay is always one of the best in the world. A mixture of soil, climate and the deft touch of a winemaker and staff in touch with the property has allowed it to always tell a fascinating story.
It’s a pursuit of white wines that balance freshness and weight, that zip across the palate but land with texture and structure.
There’s a tension between energy and substance where nuance lies, that’s what Dees is an expert at capturing and searching for when he pops a cork. It could be a touch of bitterness in Riesling, waxiness in Chenin Blanc or chalky phenolics that are dynamic features, not flaws.
And yes, Dees can find structure in white wines. Whether that’s building texture through aging on the lees or barrel selection that dials in the forest and toast levels, Dees is in search of subtly framing the wine’s profile.
At The Hilt, its vineyards: Radian and Bentrock offer space for Chardonnay to spread its wings. From the windswept, forlorn, frigid Radian where its rocky soils are a haven for a sprained ankle with every step to the gentle rolling hills of a sunsplashed Bentrock where deeper soils allow vines to thrive in a more temperate space, Dees has a diverse palate from which to paint his white wine masterpieces.
