Winemaker Notes
Now in its 17th vintage, this Chardonnay comes from a cherished parcel of Wente Clone in Santa Maria, the site of Paul Lato's very first Chardonnay. It offers layered notes of Meyer lemon, Asian pear, and Red Delicious apple, complemented by a touch of vanilla and warm baking spices. Bright acidity balances the wine’s depth, complexity, and richness, leading to a long, refined finish.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
From the Sierra Madre Vineyard in Santa Maria and aged 16 months in 65% new French oak, the 2023 Chardonnay Le Souvenir Sierra Madre Vineyard delivers Chassagne-Montrachet minerality and white flowers, with beautiful stone and citrus fruits. Medium-bodied, it has a vibrant, pure, focused mouthfeel and salty minerality on the finish. It's another incredibly classy, pure, seamless Chardonnay from Lato that does everything right. Drink 2025-2032.
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James Suckling
Generously ripe aromas of pears, apple fritters and lemon marmalade. A succulent palate with flavors of persimmons, apricot conserve, quince paste, hazelnuts and almond blossoms, all of it elegantly spiced by the judicious use of French oak.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Chardonnay Le Souvenir Sierra Madre Vineyard is a more tropical, fleshy and open-knit expression from Paul Lato, while remaining lively and impressively dynamic. Candle wax, mint, salted caramel and honeyed aromas are the prelude to a broad, textural and dense palate flanked with a mouthwatering framing of acidity. The finish is slow-moving, swelling and decadent yet retains an unwavering focus and persistence that deftly carries its sizable frame. I found this one of the more impressive offerings from Santa Maria Valley in the 2023 vintage, and it should have well over a decade of evolution ahead of it.
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.