Winemaker Notes
The grapes were harvested on two separate days to achieve ideal ripeness—August 21, September 8th. Each lot was pressed and directly put into French oak barrels (10% new) to ferment. The wine stayed there for 15 months on its lees and was then racked and lightly fined before being bottled unfiltered in March 2017.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chardonnay Bien Nacido Vineyard bursts forth from the glass with vibrant white peach, pink grapefruit and yuzu aromas with underlying marzipan, orange blossom and honeyed toast hints. Light-bodied, with intense stone fruit and citrus flavors that punch above its weight, it has an electric backbone of freshness and long, minerally finish.
Rating: 93+ -
Wine Enthusiast
Clean and crisp aromas of Gravenstein apples, Bartlett pear and key lime pith meet with a slight hint of smoke wafting in the background on this bottling by onetime wunderkind Gavin Chanin. The sizzling acidity presents delicate flavors of nectarine, peach and mango, with a touch of butter toward the finish. The wine steadily improves days after opening. Enjoy now through 2025.
Cellar Selection
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.
A lesser-known but elite AVA within the larger Santa Barbara district, the Santa Maria Valley AVA runs precisely west to east starting near the coast. The valley funnels cool, Pacific Ocean air to the vineyards more inland, allowing grapes a longer hang time to ripen evenly and achieve their full potential by harvest time. Combined with minimal rainfall, consistent warm sunshine, and well-drained soils, it is an ideal environment for grape growing.
Many of the wineries here are small and highly respected, having established a reputation in the 1970s and 80s for producing excellent Central Coast wines like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. More recently, Syrah has also proven quite successful in the region. Many vineyards are owned by growers who sell their grapes to other wineries, so it is common to see the same vineyard name on bottlings from different wineries. Bien Nacido Vineyard is perhaps the best-known and most prestigious.