The 2017s From Sonoma The 2017 Chardonnay Broken Road Vineyard is slightly more reticent on the nose yet has notable purity of fruit as well as some salty minerality. Coming from vines planted in 1992 in the Alexander Valley, aged 11 months in 50% new French oak, it has medium to full-bodied richness, nicely integrated acidity, and solid balance. It’s another outstanding wine that will keep for 4-6 years or more.

Exploring The Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond The 2017 Chardonnay Bear Point Vineyard is one of the more airy, weightless wines in the range. Lemon confit, white flowers, marzipan and apricot are front and center. Racy and pliant, with soft curves, the Bear Point will drink well right out of the gate.

USA, California, Northern California: Napa & Some Sonoma New Releases The 2016 Chardonnay Bear Point Vineyard was fermented in barrel and aged 11 months in 43% new French oak. It gives lovely ripe peaches, green guava, honeydew melon and cashew scents with hints of marzipan and nutmeg. Medium to full-bodied, the palate features a lovely satiny texture and bags of melon and stone fruit flavors, finishing on a spicy note.

The 2016 Chardonnay Bear Point Vineyard is another terrific wine from this estate. Barrel fermented and aged, with classic orchard fruits, lemon rind, honeysuckle, and white flowers, it has bright acidity, a rich, weight texture, and a clean finish. Slightly reserved and inward currently, give bottles a year and it should evolve gracefully for upwards of a decade.

Stonestreet produces single vineyard Chardonnay, which, when tasted side-by-side, are distinctly different. Whether the differences are worth the price differential is something for you and your banker to decide. Upper Barn Vineyard, at 1,800 ft elevation, must be an even cooler site because the wine is racier compared to the Bear Point Chardonnay. The balance of this wine, similar to Stonestreet’s other Chardonnays, is impeccable. There’s fruitiness, there’s freshness, there’s subtle creaminess. Nothing is out of place. There’s not a trace of heaviness or oakiness that plagued so many New World Chardonnays in the past. This is a stylish and elegant Chardonnay.

Powerful and inward, the 2016 Chardonnay Upper Barn Vineyard conveys an almost phenolic sense of structure that is more typical of a red wine. Savory and mineral notes dominate, while overt fruit is pushed into the background, in this structured, potent Chardonnay. Today, the Upper Barn is less expressive than some of the other wines in the range.

The 2016 Chardonnay Red Point is a wine of translucent energy. The lemon confit, white flower and mint notes are nicely defined in this attractive decidedly airy, almost ethereal Chardonnay. Delicate and understated, the Red Point speaks in hushed tones. It will be interesting to see if the wine opens up with a bit more time in bottle.

The 2016 Chardonnay Red Point comes from a steep block that covers roughly 300 feet in elevation and red, iron-rich soils. It's a richer, rounded, fleshy effort offering hints of tropical fruits, white flowers, and salty minerality. It's nicely textured, has integrated acidity, and a clean finish.

The 2016 Chardonnay Estate is a terrific introduction to the Stonestreet Chardonnays. Citrus, apricot, mint and a dash of new oak add nuance to this finely cut mountain Chardonnay. The Estate Chardonnay is another wine that delivers serious quality for the money. Silky and textured, the 2016 hits all the right notes. What a gorgeous wine it is.

The 2015 Chardonnay Broken Road Vineyard gives a gorgeous perfume of honeysuckle and peach blossoms with a core of apricots, cashews, baking bread and yeast extract. Medium-bodied, the palate reveals a satiny texture with savory nut and toasty layers complimenting the understated stone fruit, finishing on a yeasty note.

The 2015 Chardonnay Cougar Ridge offers lemon butter, candied ginger and beeswax notes over a core of green guava, pineapple and green mango. Medium-bodied, the palate has a wonderfully elegant, chalky nature, with a lovely silkiness to the texture and minerality on the finish.

The 2015 Chardonnay Gravel Bench is the most sumptuous and creamy of these wines. Rich and flamboyant, the 2015 exudes depth and personality. This is an especially unctuous style that works beautifully. The 100% new French oak is very nicely judged.

The 2014 Chardonnay Bear Point comes from a 1,000-foot elevation vineyard and its clonal origin is the Hyde-Wente selection. Loads of crisp pineapple notes intermixed with mango and tangerine oil jump from the glass of this full-bodied Chardonnay, which has terrific acidity and freshness. It should drink well for up to a decade.

Stonestreet's 2014 Chardonnay Cougar Ridge shows the super-distinctive, phenolic quality that makes these wines so unique. Dense and oily on the palate, with plenty of textural intensity, the 2014 is built on power, energy and volume. This is an especially imposing Chardonnay, but it works.

Lemon peel, white pepper, flowers and mint are all found in the 2013 Chardonnay Upper Barn. Next to the other wines in the range, the Upper Barn comes across as a bit compact, but it is quite pretty and expressive just the same. The Upper Barn emerges from one of the higher blocks on the property.

The 2013 Upper Barn, a vineyard that Helen Turley and John Wetlaufer made famous, spends 11 months in 49% new French oak and is fermented with indigenous yeasts. This is all Old Wente clone material, planted in 1982, so it’s among the older Chardonnay vineyards in Northern California. This wine always seems to have great acidity and loads of orange blossom, marmalade, honeysuckle and lemon blossom characteristics. The 2013 Upper Barn Vineyard (963 cases) is a beauty and certainly one of my favorites of this group.

Lastly, the 2013 Chardonnay Gravel Bench, the smallest cuvée at 188 cases, shows a greenish hue to its light straw color and loads of steely, wet pebbles in the mineral-laced aromatics. Some lemon oil, orange blossom and apple butter as well as poached pear notes also make an appearance in this beauty.

The 2012 Chardonnay Broken Road, made from Dijon clones, is the most tropical of these Chardonnays, revealing lots of pineapple, mango and a hint of bananas. A wet rock-like component provides minerality. It should drink well for 4-6 years.

Apricots, chamomile, light floral honey and sweet spices meld together in the 2012 Chardonnay Bear Point. Silky and layered in the glass, the Bear Point is all about finesse and understatement. The 2012 should drink well for at least a handful of years.

Bright yellow. Slightly high-toned aromas of pineapple, orange and spices anchored by vanillin oak; there's something vaguely Alsace riesling-like about this. Then plush, sweet, rich and expansive on the palate, more open-knit than the Broken Road. Boasts a lovely glycerol quality to its creamy flavors of soft citrus fruit. This full-bodied, inviting chardonnay holds its shape on the long aftertaste.

Bright pale yellow. Aromas and flavors of pineapple, ripe peach and sexy oak, along with more exotic tropical fruit nuances. Dense, thick and highly concentrated; still a bit reluctant to give up its flavors, with its crushed stone character in the foreground today, but this silky chardonnay boasts terrific intensity of fruit. Very long on the aftertaste.

Stonestreet's 2012 Chardonnay Upper Barn is deep, dense and powerful to the core. The personality and character of the Hyde Wente selection planted here comes through in the wine's texture and tropical-infused flavors. Spice, butter and apricot jam add layers of complexity on the finish.

Bright yellow. Highly nuanced nose combines lemon custard, smoked meat, minerals and hazelnut complicated by a sulfidey quality. Plush but very dry, with a lightly saline quality adding interest to the perfumed pineapple and mineral flavors. Finishes stony, dry and long. This is remarkably Burgundian for a California chardonnay in its price range. A worthy successor to the outstanding 2010 bottling.

Always a compelling wine, the 2011 Upper Barn shows the estate's classic acidity and minerality that give it such linear elegance. There is, however, nothing shy about the flavors, which are an explosion of oranges, peaches, limes, honey and new oak. This wine is not for aging, so drink now through 2015.

Intense and concentrated, this Chardonnay powerfully displays the pedigree of its mountain terroir. The Meyer lemondrop candy, orange and apricot fruit flavors are enriched with minerals and uplifted by bright acidity, while the oak influence lends a tension of opulence. A very fine, elegant and sophisticated wine for drinking now.