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Pine Ridge Epitome (Carneros) 2003

This wine has all the ingredients for producing a Chardonnay that would illustrate everything that's wrong with California Chardonnay these days: Dijon clones, new French oak, extended lees aging, and so on. Instead of producing an overblown, industrialized, woody wine, however, Pine Ridge has produced a big but balanced wine in which fruit and oak complement one another. Plus, there's just the right amount of acidity to make the Epitome very food friendly. Mango, almond, toast. Grade: A-