Winemaker Notes
Great depth and precision, this wine comes from the original vines planted on their own roots in 1971. Stone fruit, yellow apple, white flowers, subtle savory notes, and a chalky textural component. Clay soils intermixed with shale and diatomaceous offer subtle richness framed by an elegantly balanced bright acidity.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
The 2019 Chardonnay Sanford & Benedict Vineyard takes plenty of time to blossom on the nose with streaks of matchstick, raw almonds and crushed stone giving way to a core of baked apples and jasmine. Medium-bodied, silky and seamless, it offers expansive fruit that picks up flavor intensity as it flows through the mouth, and it boasts a long, layered finish. It deserves another 2-3 years in bottle to unwind, as its concentration and structural harmony suggest it will be long lived in bottle.
Rating: 95+ -
Jeb Dunnuck
I also loved the 2019 Chardonnay Sanford & Benedict Vineyard, a pure, classic, textbook Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay with its notes of crushed citrus, orange blossom, honeyed minerality, and serious oyster shell and salinity. It's tight, focused, has racy acidity, and good depth. It shows the fresher, vibrant style of this estate (and might be a touch skinny), but I like its intensity and length.
Rating: 92+
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 superior source of California Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills is the coolest, westernmost sub-region of the larger Santa Ynez Valley appellation within Santa Barbara County. This relatively new AVA is unquestionably one to keep an eye on.
The climate of Sta. Rita Hills is a natural match for Chardonnay and Pinot noir, thanks to the crisp ocean breezes and well-drained, limestone-rich calcareous soil. Here, grapes ripen just enough, while retaining brisk acidity and harmonious balance.