Our Chardonnay will please all white wine lovers. It is a beautiful pale golden color. Outstanding aromas include pineapple, lemon curd, stone fruits and vanilla with a core of Gravenstein apple fruit and spice. The richness on the palate livens the mouth with a smooth natural acidity followed by a finish that includes a hint of caramel. This is a well-balanced chardonnay that is soft and clean.
Specs
Vintage: 2016
Varietal: 100% Chardonnay
Appellation: Sonoma County
Alcohol: 14.5%
Aging: 12 months in French Oak
Included in the Box
6-bottles:
6x 2016 Triumph Cellars Chardonnay, Sonoma County
Case:
12x 2016 Triumph Cellars Chardonnay, Sonoma County
Jen and Andy Phipps founded Phipps Family Cellars in 2004 with the goal of producing expressive wines from select vineyards around Napa Valley and Sonoma County. We are a collection of small and medium production wines that pay homage to the finest winemaking practices and vineyards in the great state of California.
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Estimated Delivery
Monday, September 14th - Wednesday, September 16th
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
2016 Triumph Sonoma County Chardonnay - $20 = 19.99%
I was able to try Triumph Chardonnay with some friends over a socially distanced wine, cheese, and meat snack night. We had several different types of cheeses to provide different taste profiles along with the charcuterie from our local butcher shop.
My standard tasting plan for white wine is to try it straight out of the fridge, and then experience what the flavor is like once out of the fridge as it warms up. Our first taste of this was extremely mineral and crisp - lots of green apple. The wine was so crisp out of the fridge that it was more like a savingnon blanc than a chardonnay. Still delicious, but surprising. The minerality of this wine hits the palate in the same way a sparkler does, and you get a little thrill that’s similar. The high acidity makes this a perfect food wine, and the clean finish makes it excellent for cheeses, but could stand up to rich dishes.
We LOVED this wine, even super cold, and it was a wonderful companion to the cheeses - even though we had a broad swath of different kinds and flavors - it was a wonderful experience trying the wine with each cheese. One friend, who has not been a big wine drinker, spent the whole night taking little sips of the wine and taking little mouse bites of cheese and exclaiming “It’s a little different with each one! This is so cool!”
As it warms, there’s an oaky and buttery flavor that starts to come out, but it felt a little “tight” - even after some time in the glass. I decided to hold a little wine back for the next day to see what the experience might be.
I had had a ROUGH day the following day, and was too tired to make any dinner, so I ate this with leftover beef osso bucco - a meal I normally drink with a heavier red. After about an hour out of the fridge, I poured this wine into a large wine glass I also normally reserve for BIG reds.
The change over the day was remarkable. Much more oak and butter (but far from a butter bomb), while keeping the high acidity and effervescent minerality. It stood up to the rich osso bucco admirably, and was a lovely way to relax after a long day of endless meetings.
TL;DR:
Trumph Chardonnay can be consumed cold or room temp. If cold, you’ll have high acidity, green apple, and a minerally effervescent clean finish. If warmer, the green apple slightly fades into some oak and butter. If you allow the wine to breathe some, even to decant it, and drink at room temp, you’ll get what I think is what the vintner’s intention, a wine with oak and butter that presents high acidity and a high minerality that peaks with sparkle right across your palate. I’m in for a case.
@erisire great review! Thanks for the note comparing to sauv blanc…that’s my wife’s preferred grape, but we’ve been discovering lightly oaked, non-buttery Chardonnays lately. This sounds like it might fit that bill!
@hscottk Would like to know all that too! Perhaps I’m just cynical today, but based on reviewing the SEC documents a few posts down from here, I suspect that by now, they are either bankrupt, or possibly flying somewhere else in their private jets looking for better business deals to do. Note that this is a 2016 wine which seems to pre-date the actual acquisition of the “assets” which included 800 cases of wine, apparently. Of which this might be a part.
Sounds like some crazy business dealings maybe? So Calistoga Cellars became Triumph Cellars because of some new regulations on naming. Then a group of investors formed Triumph Wine Group LLC in 2016 to acquire Calistoga Cellars and Triumph Cellars, who did some crazy crowd-funding thing that went awry? Where Phipps Family Cellars listed as the winery/seller fits in here no idea. Too early and not enough coffee yet to really look at this. And who cares anyway right?
@kaolis Wow, pretty cool the level of detail in that document. Interesting that it mentions China in several sections. Wonder if perhaps that target market was harder to realize due to political events and tariffs.
[EDIT] Noticed this: “Currently approximately 800 cases of wine inventory is available for sale. Triumph began acquiring additional bulk wine
and grapes for crushing and bottling in the second quarter of 2017.”
… So if this is vintage 2016 chardonnay, it might have been part of the original 800 cases (of what origin? I’m not sure). Because any of the ‘new’ product sounds like it would be 2017 or later.
@kaolis Always good to have an Exit Strategy, I guess (something I am not good at,) but it seems sort of brutally honest in an industry where as consumers we like to think people are making wine out of passion and dedication to the art, not for “flipping” in a few years: “Exit Strategy
The company plans to increase annual production from its current 3,600 case production per year to
30,000 to 40,000 cases per year and position itself for sale or merger within the next five to seven years.
Possible acquirers include larger regional and national companies who are looking to expand their
collection of brands.”
@kaolis@rjquillin Yeah, but I still admire the passion in the old joke “we lose money on every bottle(x) we sell, but we make up for it in volume,” where “x” can be really anything, but in this case we’ll say wine. But of course you are right that a business does need some balance in profitability (so hopefully a positive balance sheet at least most years).
In this case the brutal honesty of their legal/financial document does highlight a different emphasis, where that becomes the “product” they want to sell – not their wine, but the business after they grow their market and distribution channels, which based on the documents I suspect included a big China distribution path that probably never materialized.
@kaolis@pmarin@rjquillin But if your goal is to make the business more valuable to sell it then you still need to turn at least a small profit and show that the wine can be sold at pricing that makes it worth it.
@kaolis@klezman@rjquillin Absolutely agree! The “lose money on every x” thing is just an old saying I thought was illustrative to toss in here. I meant to say “though it’s hard for a small producer to make and market quality wine and actually make a profit,” many attempt that despite the difficulty. vs. going in to the business with what sounds like “we want to make some kind-of-adequate wine, we don’t really care what, as long as we can sell it, especially to China; our main focus is building distribution channels and then selling the whole enterprise to one of the big distributors”
@kaolis@klezman@pmarin@rjquillin
Scott Harvey’s version of the joke is (sic); “The best way to make $1 million in the wine business is to start with $2 million.”
I read erisire’s review above and I don’t have much different to say. I feel a bit lazy about this review but what I was planning to write has been written.
At first taste, I had to go back and look at the bottle because it didn’t taste at all like a chardonnay to me (which I was pleased about).
We tasted it in similar ways, straight from the bottle, with some cheese, and again the next day. I will add to the above review to say that there is a pleasant tart finish.
Overall, I preferred this wine by itself. None of the cheeses I had on hand seemed to improve it. It was pretty balanced and a nice afternoon sipping wine.
@Winedavid49 I’m looking forward to seeing what CM-branded wines you can pull out of a hat given the wine glut and covid-19 combination. Fingers crossed for some great deals!
@DebRVA I have no idea what that bill is – but a search for DSM-5 results in reference to a journal of mental disorders. I will leave it to the reader to decide if that is co-incidence or if giphy was just having fun with us.
@DebRVA@Mark_L I hadn’t even considered that, but you’re probably right, just because the font is so dramatic. But then again photo-ops are the rule of the day, so ???. But yeah DSM-5 does not bring up any congressional act, only a mental disorder document. So yes I guess we got played…so we can blame giphy.
Meanwhile I still prefer a GSM: Grenache Syrah Mourvedre blend…
2016 Triumph Cellars Chardonnay, Sonoma County
Tasting Notes
Specs
Included in the Box
Price Comparison
Not for sale online, $240/case MSRP
About The Winery
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Estimated Delivery
Monday, September 14th - Wednesday, September 16th
Triumph Sonoma County Chardonnay
6 bottles for $49.99 $8.33/bottle + $1.33/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $79.99 $6.67/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
2016 Triumph Sonoma County Chardonnay
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
2016 Triumph Sonoma County Chardonnay - $20 = 19.99%
I was able to try Triumph Chardonnay with some friends over a socially distanced wine, cheese, and meat snack night. We had several different types of cheeses to provide different taste profiles along with the charcuterie from our local butcher shop.
My standard tasting plan for white wine is to try it straight out of the fridge, and then experience what the flavor is like once out of the fridge as it warms up. Our first taste of this was extremely mineral and crisp - lots of green apple. The wine was so crisp out of the fridge that it was more like a savingnon blanc than a chardonnay. Still delicious, but surprising. The minerality of this wine hits the palate in the same way a sparkler does, and you get a little thrill that’s similar. The high acidity makes this a perfect food wine, and the clean finish makes it excellent for cheeses, but could stand up to rich dishes.
We LOVED this wine, even super cold, and it was a wonderful companion to the cheeses - even though we had a broad swath of different kinds and flavors - it was a wonderful experience trying the wine with each cheese. One friend, who has not been a big wine drinker, spent the whole night taking little sips of the wine and taking little mouse bites of cheese and exclaiming “It’s a little different with each one! This is so cool!”
As it warms, there’s an oaky and buttery flavor that starts to come out, but it felt a little “tight” - even after some time in the glass. I decided to hold a little wine back for the next day to see what the experience might be.
I had had a ROUGH day the following day, and was too tired to make any dinner, so I ate this with leftover beef osso bucco - a meal I normally drink with a heavier red. After about an hour out of the fridge, I poured this wine into a large wine glass I also normally reserve for BIG reds.
The change over the day was remarkable. Much more oak and butter (but far from a butter bomb), while keeping the high acidity and effervescent minerality. It stood up to the rich osso bucco admirably, and was a lovely way to relax after a long day of endless meetings.
TL;DR:
Trumph Chardonnay can be consumed cold or room temp. If cold, you’ll have high acidity, green apple, and a minerally effervescent clean finish. If warmer, the green apple slightly fades into some oak and butter. If you allow the wine to breathe some, even to decant it, and drink at room temp, you’ll get what I think is what the vintner’s intention, a wine with oak and butter that presents high acidity and a high minerality that peaks with sparkle right across your palate. I’m in for a case.
PS: Room temp for us is 69 degrees F.
@erisire great review! Thanks for the note comparing to sauv blanc…that’s my wife’s preferred grape, but we’ve been discovering lightly oaked, non-buttery Chardonnays lately. This sounds like it might fit that bill!
@erisire Thank you for the great report. Sounds like the kind of Chards I prefer.
Thanks for the report. Hoping for some producer feedback on rs, ph, aging potential, etc.
@hscottk Would like to know all that too! Perhaps I’m just cynical today, but based on reviewing the SEC documents a few posts down from here, I suspect that by now, they are either bankrupt, or possibly flying somewhere else in their private jets looking for better business deals to do. Note that this is a 2016 wine which seems to pre-date the actual acquisition of the “assets” which included 800 cases of wine, apparently. Of which this might be a part.
A website with no information really, and a couple of interesting blurbs:
https://www.triumphwinegroup.com/
https://www.winebusiness.com/news/?go=getArticle&dataId=212990
https://calshakes.org/partnership-profile-triumph-wine-group/
https://wineindustryinsight.com/?p=88429
https://sec.report/Document/0001717615-18-000001/
https://wineexecutivenews.com/?p=9359
Sounds like some crazy business dealings maybe? So Calistoga Cellars became Triumph Cellars because of some new regulations on naming. Then a group of investors formed Triumph Wine Group LLC in 2016 to acquire Calistoga Cellars and Triumph Cellars, who did some crazy crowd-funding thing that went awry? Where Phipps Family Cellars listed as the winery/seller fits in here no idea. Too early and not enough coffee yet to really look at this. And who cares anyway right?
https://sec.report/Document/0001717615-17-000003/ExCBusPlan.pdf
Looks like it’s still on ongoing business, or at least still registered
@kaolis Wow, pretty cool the level of detail in that document. Interesting that it mentions China in several sections. Wonder if perhaps that target market was harder to realize due to political events and tariffs.
[EDIT] Noticed this: “Currently approximately 800 cases of wine inventory is available for sale. Triumph began acquiring additional bulk wine
and grapes for crushing and bottling in the second quarter of 2017.”
… So if this is vintage 2016 chardonnay, it might have been part of the original 800 cases (of what origin? I’m not sure). Because any of the ‘new’ product sounds like it would be 2017 or later.
@kaolis Always good to have an Exit Strategy, I guess (something I am not good at,) but it seems sort of brutally honest in an industry where as consumers we like to think people are making wine out of passion and dedication to the art, not for “flipping” in a few years:
“Exit Strategy
The company plans to increase annual production from its current 3,600 case production per year to
30,000 to 40,000 cases per year and position itself for sale or merger within the next five to seven years.
Possible acquirers include larger regional and national companies who are looking to expand their
collection of brands.”
@kaolis @pmarin
Well, it is a business, and needs to profit, but one would like to think it was a bit more than just that…
@kaolis @rjquillin Yeah, but I still admire the passion in the old joke “we lose money on every bottle(x) we sell, but we make up for it in volume,” where “x” can be really anything, but in this case we’ll say wine. But of course you are right that a business does need some balance in profitability (so hopefully a positive balance sheet at least most years).
In this case the brutal honesty of their legal/financial document does highlight a different emphasis, where that becomes the “product” they want to sell – not their wine, but the business after they grow their market and distribution channels, which based on the documents I suspect included a big China distribution path that probably never materialized.
@kaolis @pmarin @rjquillin But if your goal is to make the business more valuable to sell it then you still need to turn at least a small profit and show that the wine can be sold at pricing that makes it worth it.
@kaolis @klezman @rjquillin Absolutely agree! The “lose money on every x” thing is just an old saying I thought was illustrative to toss in here. I meant to say “though it’s hard for a small producer to make and market quality wine and actually make a profit,” many attempt that despite the difficulty. vs. going in to the business with what sounds like “we want to make some kind-of-adequate wine, we don’t really care what, as long as we can sell it, especially to China; our main focus is building distribution channels and then selling the whole enterprise to one of the big distributors”
@kaolis @klezman @pmarin @rjquillin
Scott Harvey’s version of the joke is (sic); “The best way to make $1 million in the wine business is to start with $2 million.”
I read erisire’s review above and I don’t have much different to say. I feel a bit lazy about this review but what I was planning to write has been written.
At first taste, I had to go back and look at the bottle because it didn’t taste at all like a chardonnay to me (which I was pleased about).
We tasted it in similar ways, straight from the bottle, with some cheese, and again the next day. I will add to the above review to say that there is a pleasant tart finish.
Overall, I preferred this wine by itself. None of the cheeses I had on hand seemed to improve it. It was pretty balanced and a nice afternoon sipping wine.
@airynne thank you for the additional details!
@airynne Thanks for reviewing. I like that this wine can stand on it’s own if need be
Yes. Opportunistic inventory.
@Winedavid49 Git 'em while you can.
@Winedavid49 I’m looking forward to seeing what CM-branded wines you can pull out of a hat given the wine glut and covid-19 combination. Fingers crossed for some great deals!
WineDrop?
100% chardonnay, in for a case!
Sounds interesting, especially at this QPR. Since you already got me for two other whites this month, I’m only in for six.
/giphy https://casemates.com/orders/external-breathtaking-animal
@DebRVA I have no idea what that bill is – but a search for DSM-5 results in reference to a journal of mental disorders. I will leave it to the reader to decide if that is co-incidence or if giphy was just having fun with us.
@DebRVA @pmarin Seeing that his signature is not even on the papers being displayed, I would conclude that this is a manipulated image.
@DebRVA @Mark_L I hadn’t even considered that, but you’re probably right, just because the font is so dramatic. But then again photo-ops are the rule of the day, so ???. But yeah DSM-5 does not bring up any congressional act, only a mental disorder document. So yes I guess we got played…so we can blame giphy.
Meanwhile I still prefer a GSM: Grenache Syrah Mourvedre blend…
THIS is my giphy? Really?
Apparently I got a bad Mango:
/giphy unjust-grueling-mango
@pmarin actually that mango looks pretty good.