Winemaker Notes
#75 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2022
The El Molino Chardonnay is complex but subtle with aromas of lemon zest, grapefruit pith, pineapple, and almonds. This is a wonderfully complex rendition showing all the hallmarks of the classic style of Chardonnay.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2019 Chardonnay is another superb wine from El Molino. It offers a captivating mix of rich, layered fruit and enough freshness to keep the flavors vibrant. Candied apricot, chamomile, lemon confit and marzipan all grace this wonderfully expressive Chardonnay. There is a delicate breeziness to the 2019 that is quite appealing.
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Wine Spectator
Presents an impressive beam of purity, a generous core of juicy tangerine, green apple and lemon curd as well as a vibrant acidity that keeps the flavors wonderfully in focus. Reveals an appealing fleshy quality in the body, with hints of jasmine, spice and sea salt on the long, generous finish. Drink now through 2032.
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.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.