Home >Wine Store >Olivet Lane Chardonnay Russian River

Green melon, guava, mandarin, baked apple, apricot, white pepper and cinnamon.

The Pellegrini family has honed their craft since the early 1900s when brothers Nello and Gino migrated to Manhattan from Tuscany. By 1925, they'd moved to California, where they became grape merchants in Sonoma County, distributing fruit throughout the county. Post Prohibition, they established the Pellegrini Wine Company and started producing their own label. In the 1950s, Nello's son Vincent took over, expanding the wholesale distribution of both imported and domestic wines. Vincent and his wife, Ida, bought a 70-acre plot of sloping apple and plum orchards on Olivet Road and converted the prime Russian River Valley property into Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines, one of the first estates in the area to do so.

Fish or shellfish is generally a good pairing with Chardonnay, and this wonderful wine calls out for something from the sea. Since it is still Dungeness crab season, I suggest you prepare one of my family's all time favorite foods, my Famous Roast Garlic Crab. The crab will work fantastically with the Olivet Lane's wafts of citrus and the luscious minerality. Alternatively, make a simple grilled fish with lemon or serve with a fresh goat cheese.

During Prohibition the Pelligrini family sold grapes to San Franciscans for home winemaking, the only kind allowed under the law. Thank goodness the law has changed!