• French oak
• Pineapple
• Crème brûlée
• Soft texture

"Immensely complex and engaging, the wine shows mango, cedary oak, French vanilla, sweet pastry and subtle toffee notes on the nose, followed by a concentrated palate offering fleshy texture and beautifully melded acidity. It's multi-layered and expansive with an impressively long satisfying finish. At its best: now to 2032" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Feb 2023

"Baked apple, toasted nuts and oak aromas make for a familiar nose on this bottling. The palate is creamy in texture and loaded with butter and sea-salt richness, as a lemony apple fruit character holds the midpalate" Matt Kettmann, Wine Enthusiast

This Chardonnay has a beautiful, pale golden hue with tropical aromas of pineapple that mingle with toasted oak and hints of key lime pie, golden delicious apples, and caramel. The delicate fruit flavors and honeycomb give way to lovely notes of crème brûlée, mandarin orange, roasted almonds. The full-bodied mouthfeel, soft texture and light to medium acidity keeps the palate fresh.

The 2020 Monterey growing season started out great with mild weather and normal timing for bud break. Overall, the season was generally mild, perfect for great acid retention and f lavor development. Mild temperatures, overnight fog and afternoon winds provided extra hang-time desired for great phenolic development which this region typically enjoys.

Just over 80% of this blend comes from our San Bernabe Vineyard (of which 2/3 come from the newer 2014 plantings). The SBV vineyard has a range of soils from ancient aeolian sand dunes to calcareous soils. The sandy soils are free draining, allowing the vines to develop deep root systems developing healthier vines. The climate is much warmer during the day and cools down in the afternoon as the prevailing afternoon winds funnel down from the Monterey Bay allowing for the development of more tropical characters. The remainder of the blend comes from Santa Lucia highlands which is cooler than our San Bernabe Vineyards, providing more citrusy notes. Only our best blocks with specific clones, mostly Dijon, made it to the finish blend, from our San Bernabe Vineyard blocks 41A (clone 17), block 41B (clone 44) has more calcareous soils adding minerality to the final blend.

Our veteran winemaker, James Ewart, oversees the team and the small-lot winery built in the vineyard. We picked our blocks in the cool mornings when the fruit was fully ripe and brought it directly into the winery. Each block was kept separate, sent directly to the press and gently pressed, being careful not to extract bitter phenolics from the seeds and skins. The juice settled overnight in stainless steel tanks before being transferred to barrels, where they began their fermentations. Prise Du Mousse and CY-3079 were the main yeasts used. The Pris Du Mousse yeast ferments very cleanly and preserves the brightness of the fruit, while CY-3079 yeast a favorite for Chardonnay fermentations, adds subtle notes of honey, spice and enhances pineapple notes in the wine. Following this primary fermentation, the barrels were topped and underwent a secondary or malolactic fermentation which softens and rounds out the wine, while also adding some buttery notes. The wine was then stirred by hand every two weeks for six months, further adding richness and creaminess to the palate. 100% of the wine is barrel fermented in primarily French oak (~40 % new). After eight months of aging, portions were racked and put back into seasoned French oak barrels where it spent another three months before final blending.