I had the pleasure of meeting with Mike and Lori DeLoach of Hook & Ladder Winery recently for a portfolio tasting. Really enjoyed the profiles across the board (the Station Ten red blend and the Gewurztraminer being two of my favorites) although, after chatting a bit, learned that their personal favorite drinker wasn’t currently in the lineup we’d had. So an incredibly nice gift arrived for me yesterday: the Third Alarm Reserve 2012 Chardonnay.

Echoing the style from the two whites I’d previously tasted of theirs, the lean and acid-friendly texture continues here. Bright saltines, buttered toast, caramel apples, along with whiffs of guava and artichoke mix on the nose with a lovely subtle beachstone minerality. Meanwhile, a fresh bouquet of white flowers persists throughout. This is a refined and coy wine on the palate; the complexities lie in the subtleties. Underripe pineapple, red apples, and buttered popcorn form the core of the medley. There’s a wonderful tension here; the mid palate lifts while an underlying sheen of viscosity hugs the tongue making for a wonderful transition mid-sip that showcases its weight while still being light on its feet. Very pretty and long finish of nut-dusted citrus. The acidity is really what brings the whole thing together here, and then it’s helped along by its willingness to find comfort more in nuance rather than showiness. Lovely. 91 pts.

Had fondly remembered the Schild 2010 Shiraz bottling and swung through to give this Australian Rhone-styled blend a go. Tasted both on day 1 and 2, and initially it offered a decent whiff of funk. this ended up blowing off mostly by the second day, allowing the fruit to shine better, though. The nose, at that point, finally popped with baked boysenberries, and blueberries and sour red cherries spiced up with black peppercorns and tarragon.The palate shows an interesting mix of pressed blueberries and meat-rub spices. The juiciness showed more attractively when the funk had subsided although the heat on the wine stayed slightly imbalanced and heavy. There’s an appeal here, but it seemed stuck a bit. 87+ pts.