I did not know any good Chardonnay vineyards, that was the problem. Then I got a call from another friend, up north of Santa Barbara. "Hey," he said. "I just learned about some own-rooted, Wente-clone, Chardonnay, planted in the 70s. Do you want to go look at it?"

It looked brilliant. Old, gnarly vines on the flood plain of the Santa Ynez river. Tiny clusters, tiny berries, ripening very slowly. Even in when we harvested in October, the fruit barely got to 12.5% alcohol.

We immediately co-fermented some of the juice with Ribolla, to make a blend. But we kept most of it separate, in its own two barrels.

As my mind turned to Friuli this Spring, in preparation for bottling, I wondered how best to use this wine? I decided that it was good enough for its own bottling, and that it reminded me of the modest, yet serious, Chardonnays of Vie di Romans in the flood plains of the Isonzo. I named it "Le Volpi," the Vixens, in honor of its Foxen Canyon origin.