Winemaker Notes
Gorgeous. Citrus, caramelized mandarin orange, marzipan, and toasted brioche notes all define the bouquet. The palate grips with crushed rock minerality giving frame to the stone fruit and citrus flavors. It's medium-bodied, with a lively, elegant mouthfeel, good acidity, and building richness.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This wine comes from a parcel of chardonnay under contract to Au Bon Climat for more than 40 years. It has an old-vine reserve, starting off dense and broad, laden with expensive oak (half of the barrels are new). A leesy, toasted-nut savor comes up with air, the wine’s flavors quietly unfurling; after a day the texture becomes generous, layered and full of energy, the oak in retrograde. This clearly needs to grow into itself; when it does, serve it with butter-poached halibut.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Gorgeous as well, the 2019 Chardonnay Sanford & Benedict Vineyard comes from a great site in the Sta. Rita Hills and was brought up in 75% new François Frères barrels. Crushed citrus, caramelized mandarin orange, salty minerality, and toasted bread notes all define the bouquet, and it's medium-bodied, with a lively, elegant mouthfeel, good acidity, and building richness. It's wonderfully balanced and well worth seeking out.
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Wine Enthusiast
Singed oak, toasted almond and cashew and baked apple aromas converge on the nose of this bottling from a historic vineyard collection. The palate grips with a crushed rock minerality, giving a frame to the lemon zest and stone-fruit flavors.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Ranging from cool and foggy in the west to warm and dry in the east, the Santa Ynez Valley is a climatically diverse growing area. The most expansive AVA within the larger Santa Barbara County region, Santa Ynez is also home to a wide variety of soil types and geographical features. The appellation is further divided into four distinct sub-AVAs—Sta. Rita Hills, Ballard Canyon, Los Olivos District and Happy Canyon—each with its own defining characteristics.
A wide selection of grapes is planted here—more than sixty different varieties, and counting. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir dominate in the chilly west, while Zinfandel, Rhône blends, and Bordeaux blends rule the arid east. Syrah is successful at both ends of the valley, with a lean and peppery, Old-World sensibility closer to the coast and lush berry fruit further inland.