If you are visiting us for the first time, Welcome! The Wine Spies feature one exceptional wine each day – and we only bring you wines that we ourselves seek out and love. Always, the wines are great. Sometimes even better than that, as is the case with today’s wine from Ron Lilly Wines.

FREE SHIPPING ALERT!:

For today’s incredible wine, enjoy Free Ground Shipping on orders of 6 or more bottles, using promotion code SONOMASPY.

Mission Codename: The Runaway

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Investigate the rumors of a superior Chardonnay from veteran winemaker, Ron Lilly. If its as good as we have heard, return with an allocation for our Operatives

Mission Status: Accomplished!

Current Winery: Ron Lilly Wines

Wine Subject: 2006 Terisa Chardonnay

Winemaker: Ron Lilly

Backgrounder: In 1978 Ron Lilly got the wine bug at a winemakers dinner in New York. Soon after he sold off everything that would not fit in his van, and drove to California with his wife, Margaret. On arriving in California, he applied for entry-level positions at various wineries in Sonoma and Napa. When asked on a job application if he could operate office equipment, he listed telephone and light switch. This landed him a job immediately and his career was off and running. Ron made his was through the ranks, learning every aspect of winery operations, and eventually becoming head winemaker for a prestigious winery. Finally, after 30 years of honing his skills, Ron struck out on his own. Today he makes an elegant and delicious Chardonnay that is well worthy of your attention

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Bright golden yellow with perfect clarity and sparkling edges, with legs that start slow then speed down the glass

Smell – Wonderfully expressive and bright with tropical fruit, citrus, toasted vanilla, river rock and soft honeysuckle

Feel – Great mouthfeel that is round and smooth in the mouth. I enjoyed moving it around to different spots, felling the different sensations that this wine conveys

Taste – Bright and fruity with green apple, pineapple, pear, starfruit and a light flinty minerality

Finish – Long and strong, this is a wine that balances its flavors and aromas in its finish by tapering off in equal proportion with a slight dryness and mineral chalkiness that makes your mouth water

Conclusion – By now you know that I am most partial to red wines. Every now and then, however, I am called upon to sleuth out and review a superior white wine. In the case of today’s wine, boy am I glad!. Ron Lilly makes a delicious Chardonnay that is imbued with his depth of experience and wisdom. To the shock of my fellow Agents, I found this wine is so pleasing and so delicious that it found a spot on my dinner table recently. If you love expressive Chardonnay that does not suffer from over-oaking, but still has great body, I recommend this wine wholeheartedly!

Mission Report:

Ron Lilly is so enthusiastic about his wine and about winemaking that once you get him talking about either, you might not be able to get him to stop. So I found out when, posing as a wine reporter, I met with Ron.

Ron is an eminently affable character with an unmistakable New York edge. He is jovial, animated and passionate. Especially where his family and his wines are concerned.

Growing up in New York, Ron was born to be in wine. He just didn’t know it until he was in his twenties. Like Gary Vaynerchuk, one of our own wine heroes, Ron spent his early years working in his parents bottle shop. There he learned a little bit about wine. It was when he attended a winemaker dinner, organized for folks in the local wine trade that Ron had a wine epiphany.

Ron was so impressed and inspired by a presentation given by the winemaker, that he decided then and there that he would one day become a winemaker himself. So confident was he, that he convinced his wife, Margaret, to sell their possessions, sell their Volkswagen, throw what little they had left into a new van – and head for the vineyards of California.

On arriving in wine country, Ron knocked on many doors. Brimming with confidence, bravado and enthusiasm, he filled out employment applications at some of Napa and Sonoma County’s finest wineries. When asked on a job application if he had any particular office equipment skills, Ron wrote that he was proficient in the use of the Telephone and the Light Switch. This got the attention of the winery and he was hired immediately.

Starting in the winery’s warehouse gave Ron a solid grounding in winery operations and he gradually rose through the ranks, occupying nearly every position and eventually becoming the winery’s winemaker. It wasn’t until Ron felt that he had perfected his skills that he made the decision to start his own wine label.

Today, the culmination of Ron’s love-labor can be tasted in the great Chardonnay that he produces. The wine he makes bares the name Terisa, a recrafting of the name Theresa, which is the name of both Ron’s mother and Margaret’s mother.

If you love delicious white wine that has a soul, I promise that you will enjoy Ron Lilly’s excellent Chardonnay.