From Livermore’s Legacy to Your Glass: Wente Morning Fog Chardonnay 2023

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A single sip of Wente Morning Fog Central Coast Chardonnay 2023 tells a bigger story—one about a 140-year family legacy, a game-changing clone, and the craft behind a clean, vanilla-tinged style that wins without the heavy butter. We open the bottle and trace Wente’s roots in Livermore, where the family helped shape modern Chardonnay by selecting and improving clones that now appear in roughly three-quarters of U.S. plantings. That history isn’t trivia; it directly affects how today’s wine tastes: brighter fruit, better balance, and reliable quality year after year.

We get granular about technique in a way that’s friendly and useful. Why split fermentation between neutral American oak and stainless steel? Neutral oak lets in a whisper of oxygen to round the texture, while stainless preserves crisp green-apple notes and freshness. Then there’s lees aging and bâtonnage—stirring the lees to add creaminess without piling on heavy oak flavor. The result is a Chardonnay that leans vanilla over butter, with a lively mid-palate and a clean finish that plays well with salads, white fish, and simple white pasta. If you’ve written off Chardonnay as too oaky, this bottle is a welcome reset.

We also talk value and consistency. Morning Fog keeps delivering at a price that makes it a weeknight staple and a party-safe pick, with scores around 90 points backing up its reputation. Expect green apple, gentle vanilla, and a calm, polished texture that suits a wide range of palates. If you’re building a small wine lineup at home, this is the versatile slot—easy to serve, easy to love, and easy on the wallet.

If our breakdown helped you find your next fridge-door white, follow the show, share this episode with a Chardonnay skeptic, and leave a quick review so more wine fans can discover smart, affordable bottles. Cheers to keeping it tasty—and keeping it cheap.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Hey, hello, it's Domain Dave,
cheapwinefinder.com.
As always, uh, we write up areview on the
cheapwinefinder.com website,value pricewine.
Something I find interestinganyway.
And then we plug in themicrophone, and well, there we
are.
And today we've got the WenteMorning Fog Central Coast

(00:22):
Chardonnay 2023.
And Wente was founded in 1883 inLivermore, California.
Livermore is on the other sideof the San Francisco Bay, kind
of uh south and west of SanFrancisco.
Back then, in those days, that'swhere the wine industry was

(00:43):
happening.
Now it's up north of the SanPablo Bay, which was north of
San Francisco.
But back then, this was theplace to be.
Wente is the oldest continuouslyowned and operated family
vineyard in the United States,and what they are maybe best

(01:03):
known for is developing grapeclones.
Flaxron and in and pests anddisease in France devastated the
wine industry.
And they needed to come up withgrapes that were more resistant,
more tolerant, and that werestronger.
And Wente was one of the well,maybe the pioneers and the

(01:27):
leaders of that.
Today their Chardonnay clone isin 75% of all the Chardonnays in
the U.S.
And I was at a Bordeaux tastinga couple years ago, and I was
asking one of the um wineriesabout what clone they use.
I don't know why I did that.
I must have been readingsomething about clones, and they
said uh we use the Wente clone,and they said they took a

(01:51):
Bordeaux, you know, a cuttingfrom Bordeaux and improved it.
It proved the clone to where itwas healthy and disease
resistant, and it it did the youknow, made great grapes, so they
helped us, and then we broughtit back to Bordeaux.
So Wente is instrumental in thewine industry today.

(02:15):
They have um and they're stillmaking great wines.
This morning fog is the uh entrylevel, if you call it entry
level.
Uh they make a bunch ofdifferent wines, but they've
been making, they were the veryfirst people to make a
Chardonnay wine to grow theChardonnay grape.
And that's 1883.
So we're talking 140 years orsomething ago.

(02:36):
So they know what they're doing.
And I've loved the morning fogever since I tasted it.
It's this one's a littledifferent.
It used to be a from Livermoreat this time a Central Coast.
I think they own uh they havevineyards in Livermore, and I
think a Royo Seco in um inMonterey, but I don't know if

(02:57):
these come from their vineyards.
They could they could source itout.
They've been they've been aroundforever, they they do know
everybody, so they could go outand and buy grapes, or this
could be their own grapes.
I don't know.
They don't really say since theydon't say it, man, maybe it
isn't, maybe it's maybe it's amixture.
I'm gonna take a sip.

(03:23):
Plastic Chardonnay.

Here's the thing (03:25):
if you don't like butter in your Chardonnay,
because that's what oak willgive it, and in a in a in a
Chardonnay does um pick up thoseoak flavors and do give butter.
This one is not butter, it'svanilla.
If you don't like butter, tryvanilla, it works.
This is a really tasty wine.

(03:46):
It's got uh mostly apple, itgives you that green apple, and
this one is uh 50% uh fermentedin a neutral uh American oak and
50% um fermented and stainlesssteel, so you're getting those
two different flavors going on.
Neutral oak doesn't add flavor,but a barrel is waterproof or

(04:10):
watertight, but not completelyairtight.
You don't want too much air toget in there, but a little bit
changes thing up from stainlesssteel where it's completely
airtight.
And then it was um aged inAmerican oak again and stainless
steel, and part of it's onleaves, part of it's not on
lees, part of it's got stirredlees.
You stir the lees and it givesthe wine a little bit of a

(04:32):
cream, which might be with thisvanilla I'm tasting, and also
some salty and maybe nuttythings.
Sometimes those salty, nuttythings get caught up with the
flavors.
So I'm not really catching thathere, but I am getting the
vanilla, and which I think isthat batonage.
Batonage is where they stir theleaves.

(04:53):
Leaves are dead yeast and bitsof grape, the residue.
And uh it sounds batonage soundscool, but it means stick.
I mean, all this all theseFrench words and wines sound,
oh, that sounds impressive, andit means something silly.
I mean something very basic.
I'm gonna take a little sip.

(05:18):
Delicious.
I mean, it's just a goodChardonnay.
They've been making it forever,they know what they're doing.
I'm gonna actually pour myself alittle more in my glass because
I'm running low.
This is a very versatilechardonnay.
You could have this with saladsand you know, white fish, uh uh
white pastas.

(05:38):
Or you can just drink it becauseit tastes great.
So there you go.
I this is a this is a favoriteof mine when it comes to
Chardonnay.
Um the morning fog has been afavorite for over 10 years, and
it's at a good price.
And uh, what else do you wantfor a wine?
And this, and I also noticedthat um it got 90 points from

(06:00):
various um you know uh wine winereviewers over the years in wine
magazine.
So, this is something that'sthat routinely gets rated very
highly for a value price wine.
That's always good to see, andit's because they've been around
forever, they know how to makeChardonnay, and they made a good
one here.
So, adios, keep it cheap.
This is uh Domain Dave,cheapwinefighter.com.

(06:23):
Winte Morning Fog Central CoatChardonnay 2023.
It's just good Chardonnay at agood price.
So that's it for me.
Keep it cheap.
I'll be talking about it in acouple days.
We got more wines to do, andwe'll start getting Halloween
wines.
So, adios, bye bye.