Winemaker Notes
The 2018 Mayacamas Chardonnay is lively and fresh, featuring acacia blossom, lemon zest, marzipan, and green pear notes underpinned by lingering salinity. A firm acid backbone will make for a mouthwatering finish over the next 15 years.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Made from decades-old dry-farmed vines planted to the Wente clone in rocky, volcanic soils, this is a stunning wine, flinty, fleshy and expansive, with undeniable minerality. Lemon zest, meringue and pear contrast against persistent acidity and a lasting briny tone that lifts the palate further.
Cellar Selection
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James Suckling
Mayacamas always delivers such focused and well-crafted chardonnay like this with cooked-apple, pear, light vanilla and seashell character on the palate. It’s tight and super integrated with a tight, creamy palate that goes on for minutes. Serious structure.Mayacamas always delivers such focused and well-crafted chardonnay like this with cooked-apple, pear, light vanilla and seashell character on the palate. It’s tight and super integrated with a tight, creamy palate that goes on for minutes. Serious structure.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chardonnay shows a hint of toasty, honeyed development on the nose, highlighting the ripe tangerine and citrus notes. Maybe the plumpest and most generous of the vintages tasted on this occasion, this medium-bodied effort remains bright and crisp, seamlessly marrying those sensations with a ripe, silky texture. Best After 2022.
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.
Centered at the peak for which it is named, Mount Veeder is Napa’s largest sub-AVA. But even though the entire appellation spreads over 16,000 acres, vineyards cover a mere 1,000. Scattered among Douglas firs and bristlecone pines, Mount Veeder vineyards extend south from the upper elevations of the Mayacamas Mountains—the highest point at 2,400 feet—to the border of the Carneros region. Less than 25 wineries produce wine from Mount Veeder fruit.
Winemaking began early in this appellation. In 1864, Captain Stelham Wing presented the first Mount Veeder wine to the Napa County Fair; it came from today’s Wing Canyon Vineyard. Prohibition, of course, halted winemaking and viticulture wasn’t revitalized until the founding of Mayacamas Vineyards in 1951 and Bernstein Vineyards in 1964.
The Bernstein Vineyards was actually home to the first Petit Verdot in California, planted in 1975. Today most of the Petit Verdot in Napa Valley originates from this vineyard.
Rocky volcanic clay and ancient seabed matter dominate Mount Veeder soils—perfect for Bordeaux varieties. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot enjoy spectacular success. These varieties produce wines rich in brambly blackberry and black cherry fruit with herbal and floral aromatics. Structures are moderate to assertive and wines have great staying power.
Chardonnay from Mount Veeder is lush, full and balanced mineral and fresh citrus flavors.