Graveyard Chardonnay 2011

I drink red wine a lot more than I drink white wine. Even in summer, I tend to reach for red when I want wine, and stick with beer (hence all these beer posts I've been doing lately) or fruity cocktails when it's hot. So it's just a strange series of events that brings me to reviewing the second white wine from Paso Robles since I started this blog. They're very different wines, though.

The first one was an albarino which was on the sweet and fruity side.  This one is a chardonnay, on the dry and oakey side, from Graveyard Vineyards. It's an interesting winery. It overlooks an old cemetery, hence the name, and they take the theme as far as they can. There are skeleton and tombstone decorations all over the place. We stopped by because it was on the way between two others that had been recommended to us, and we liked it well enough to buy a few bottles.

So, the wine. It's a fairly oakey chardonnay, so it's good with food, but it tastes great on its own. The nose is full of peaches and vanilla. It made me think of peach pie. The taste is big and a little spicy. I got hints of white pepper with some passion fruit in there. It nicely lingers on the tongue with each sip. We had it with pork ribs and wilted kale, and it went really well with it.

I'm not sure why I prefer reds to whites. I think a lot of white wines are boring. It seems like there's not much you can say about them except they taste like apple, or tropical fruit, or whatever it is. It might taste fine, but just not be particularly interesting. So when I do like a white wine well enough to buy it, it's because there is something to it that is a little different. I think it was the spice in this chardonnay that I found particularly appealing. It was a good price too, $22 at the winery.