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After a quarter of a century of making Chardonnay here at Beringer, you`d think that I know all there is to know about it - I`m glad to say that I don`t! I`ve certainly learned a lot since the old days experimenting with barrel fermentation and various lees-stirring regimes to figure out how we could push the flavor-intensity envelope and still have balance. A lot of the work we`ve done has been in the vineyards as we learned the nuances of the different sites and how the individual blocks within them could be fine-tuned to maximize flavor. We`ve dialed our attention-to-detail further into focus each year in the winery as well and the 1999 Private Reserve Chardonnay is a good example of this - it has rich, ripe layers of bright citrus, lemon peel, pineapple and smoky, toasty oak with sweet vanilla and butter notes. There`s only one word for it: Delicious! Ed Sbragia, Winemaster