Based on Cabernet Sauvignon, this Bordeaux blend is very fine, but young. It needs time to allow the aggressive tannins to resolve and for the blackberry, black currant and herb flavors to emerge. New oak adds a sweet smokiness that will become an integral part of the final wine.

Impressive, peppery, vanilla nose with much welcomed complexity. A dry, elegant style with smoky, vanilla, chocolate, licorice, spicy blackberry jam, cassis, minty cedar flavours. Long and warm this will need 3-5 years to soften. A serious Legacy from an excellent year.

Impressive, smoky, peppery, vanilla nose spiked with spicy, cedar, licorice, clove, black olive and cassis jam aromas. Fine and much welcomed complexity. Rich, round, dry, elegant style but quite intense with grainy tannins. Smoky, vanilla, chocolate, licorice, spicy blackberry jam, cassis, minty cedar flavours. Long and warm this will need 3-5 years to soften. A serious Legacy from an excellent year.

Exploring The Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond The 2017 Chardonnay Broken Road Vineyard is laced with a myriad of citrus, white flower and mineral notes. This medium-bodied Chardonnay is built on focus, delineation and energy. Bright saline notes punctuate the crystalline finish. A bit tight today, but another year or two in bottle should help.

The 2017s From Sonoma More brioche, smoked earth, stone fruits, and toasted spice notes emerge from the 2017 Chardonnay Bear Point Vineyard, and it too is medium to full-bodied, with bright acidity and a gorgeous texture. Coming all from a site in the Alexander Valley and aged 11 months in 46% new French oak, it’s another classic, incredibly high-quality wine from this team.

Exploring The Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond The 2017 Chardonnay Gold Run is powerful and inviting. Deep and pliant, with striking depth in its fruit, it is also expansive, creamy and generous. Though decidedly overt, it is also complex and layered, featuring tons of orchard fruit, chamomile and lightly honeyed notes that develop in the glass.

Pure and powerful, featuring precise flavors of crushed stone, dried apple and pear, with well-structured hints of peach pastry. The long finish is filled with rich mineral and spice accents.

The 2016 Chardonnay Broken Road Vineyard is bright, focused and wonderfully detailed. Lemon peel, crushed rock, sage, mint and white pepper give the Broken Road a distinctly saline, tense quality that is hugely appealing. There is plenty of depth and structure here as well.

The 2016 Chardonnay Bear Point Vineyard shows a more creamy, voluptuous side of the estate. Apricot, peach, lemon confit and chamomile infuse an oily, waxy Chardonnay built on rich layers of texture. Even with all of its intensity, the 2016 has quite a bit of freshness. This is very nicely done.

The 2016 Chardonnay Gravel Bench Vineyard is dense, powerful and smoky, with impeccable balance and tons of class. Ripe apricot, peach, chamomile, dried flowers and mint develop in the glass, but like the best Stonestreet wines, the Gravel Bench is mostly about texture. This is a terrific showing.

The 2015 Chardonnay Red Point has a seriously intense tropical and stone fruit-scented nose of pineapple, passion fruit and ripe nectarines with touches of brioche, allspice and coriander seed. The medium-bodied palate delivers a fantastically crisp backbone supporting the intense citrus and tropical flavors, finishing long and spicy.

The 2015 Chardonnay Gravel Bench delivers a wonderfully expressive buttered toast, lemon curd and honeycomb-scented nose with a core of white peaches, ripe grapefruit and cedar. Medium-bodied, it has a lovely creaminess to the texture and mouth-filling ripe citrus fruit and savory layers, finishing long with some nutty nuances coming through.

The 2014 Chardonnay Broken Road (1800-foot elevation) is made from Dijon clones and displays oodles of tropical fruit such as orange, pineapple and apricot marmalade in a deep, rich, crisp, lusty and dramatic style. It is one of the more flamboyant of these Chardonnays out of the gate, and should drink well for up to a decade as well.

The 2014 Chardonnay Red Point is all about finesse. Silky and exceptionally polished, the Red Point is super-expressive today. Beautifully layered and textured, the Red Point captures the more restrained side of the estate. The Red Point is arguably the most refined of the Stonestreet Chardonnays.

The 2014 Chardonnay Gravel Bench is laced with the essence of graphite, pencil shavings, chamomile, savory herbs and dried orchard fruit. Here the impression is of vertical power and intensity. Flamboyant, textured and oily on the palate, the Gravel Bench possesses magnificent richness and overall balance. The 100% new oak is totally integrated. The bold, phenolic style may not appeal to all readers, but in my view, the Gravel Bench is one of California's most distinctive Chardonnays.

Another stunner is the 2013 Chardonnay Broken Road, which exhibits peach, honeysuckle and orange marmalade notes and is made from mostly Dijon clones of Chardonnay.

A full-on, voluptuous Chardonnay, the 2013 Bear Point impresses for its depth and exceptional overall balance. Tropical fruit, honey, chamomile, wild flowers, smoke and peach are some of the many nuances that open up in the glass. The waxy, oily finish is a thing of beauty. The Bear Point is one of the more opulent wines in this lineup. Today, it is striking.

Bright lemon, citrus peel and white floral notes emerge from Stonestreet's 2013 Chardonnay Cougar Ridge. This is another tense, brilliant Chardonnay built on pure energy and cut. The wine's super-intense yet mid-weight personality suggests there will be considerable upside from giving bottles a year or two to fully come together.

The 2013 Chardonnay Red Point, 100% Clone 4 Chardonnay, brings together many of the best elements of the estate; namely a rich, textured expression of fruit allied to bright, salivating acidity. There is plenty of depth through the mid-palate, while the flavors gain brightness and drive on the finish.

Butter, pastry, tropical fruit, spices and honey open up in the glass as the 2012 Chardonnay Broken Road shows off its voluptuous, textured personality. The Broken Road is one of the more forward, overt Chardonnays in the range, but all the elements are very much in balance. There is more than enough underlying minerality to support the fruit.

The 2012 Chardonnay Cougar Ridge exhibits mineral-laced wet stones, tropical fruit such as pineapple and mango, and hints of white peaches and white currants. It should drink well for 5-6 years.

Very pale, bright yellow with a faint green tinge. Knockout, soil-inflected nose combines lime leaf, fresh peach, quinine, menthol and stone lifted by a hint of orange zest. Highly concentrated and tactile, with a touch of sweetness but outstanding buoyancy to its savory peach and crushed stone flavors. Wonderfully dense wine with a slowly mounting, very long finish. This might be a bit sweet as a ringer in a white Burgundy tasting--or it might simply be the runaway favorite.

Old World elegance and classicism with New World power in this classic Californian Chardonnay. Wow.

The best of Stonestreet’s quartet of 2011 Chardonnays. It’s notable for the creamy, honeyed mouthfeel that’s so opulent. Also very complex in flavors, offering waves of tropical fruits, baked apples and peach jam. Yet it’s all brightened by zesty acidity. Delicious now, but don’t drink it too cold. Or cellar it for 6–8 years as it develops dried fruit and nut notes.

The 2011 Chardonnay Gravel Bench is the brightest and most vibrant of these 2011 Chardonnays. It is also the only wine fermented and aged in 100% new oak, although there is virtually no trace of oak at all because the wine is so impeccably balanced. Bright, focused hints of lemon, crushed rocks and white flowers all jump from the glass in a Chardonnay that captures the pure crystalline purity of the vintage. Clean, saline notes appear to support the finish. This is yet another fabulous selection within the Stonestreet portfolio. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2026.