Aged nine months in 100% neutral oak barrels, the 2023 Chardonnay Sta. Rita Hills offers
crushed citrus, oyster shell, white flowers, and a kiss of salty minerality. It's medium-bodied, has
remarkable purity, vibrant acidity, and a great finish. As I've written many times, this appellation
release can stand toe to toe with any Chardonnay from Santa Barbara County. Drink 2025-2035.

The 2023 Chardonnay Hapgood, aged 15 months in neutral oak, has a medium gold hue and is a
touch more reticent, offering ripe stone fruits, almond paste, Meyer lemon, and a distinctive
oyster shell-like minerality and salinity. Balanced and medium-bodied, it has a layered, round
mouthfeel, bright acidity, and a great finish. It’s going to age gracefully on its depth and
concentration. Drink 2025-2040.

From a producer that's deftly making wines of refinement and finesse, the Flavorscape series represents more of a let-your-hair-down approach. The distinct influence of the vineyard area's plentiful river-borne basalt cobblestones in undeniable. This 100% Grenache spends 17 days on its skins and includes 30% whole clusters. A pick-early mantra and a light touch, combined with ageing in 50% new French oak barrels, brings tension and depth to the wine.

The 2023 Syrah Perilune is lights-out fabulous: clear, precise and expressively aromatic. Fleshy yet focused, with dense, floral-inflected red fruit, cedar, lavender, crushed rocks and mint, the Perilune Syrah is a swan song for this vineyard that will sadly no longer be in production moving forward. What a beautiful wine.

The 2023 Pinot Noir 3D is deeply mineral and savory, turning out shades of chalk, salt, smoke, crushed rocks and intense, gravelly minerality. Black-tea-like tannins and notes of rooibos tea are enshrouded by particularly suave textures. The 3D presents such a compelling, engaging juxtaposition of textural suppleness vs structural sternness. It's the most cerebral wine in the lineup.

The 2023 Chardonnay Perilune delivers a whisper of stylistic flinty reduction that highlights its sexy base layer of creamy stone fruit. Mouthwateringly juicy and impeccably focused, the 2023 impresses with its palate presence and calibrated balance. The It's an inherently rich white that makes all the right moves to keep it between the lines. Gorgeous.

The 2023 Chardonnay 3D is a powerful, intense white with loads of salty concentration and inner power to burn. Leesy, minty overtones lift a core of golden apple, toasted hazelnut and cream. Classic Sta. Rita Hills salinity and minerality speak clearly and intentionally here. This is everything Chardonnay from this part of the world can and should be.

Fresh, floral and dense with lovely sweet blackcurrant and blackberry fruit. There’s a sweet core to the fruit and a purity. Generous with a twist of ginger and dried herb sitting under the sweet, generous, floral, expressive fruit. A really lovely, complete wine.

This is firm, grippy and dense with a wide dynamic range with sweet blackberry and blackcurrant fruit, with a nice tension. Grippy and expressive with massive potential for development, with the ripe fruit hemmed in by nice acidity and firm tannins.

This is ripe and concentrated, with lovely dense blackcurrant fruit and some warm berry character. Lovely weight and texture in the mouth: smooth but well defined with fine-grained tannins. Has a hint of Indian spices around the edges. Lovely in a ripe style.

A dry year with low yields, with tiny berries. This is dense and structured with vivid blackcurrant fruit and some fine spicy detail. The oak integrates well. Good tannic structure here with a core of sweet fruit. So textural and vivid, with great balance and intensity. Ripe but firm, and avoids being at all jammy.

Powerful and structured with concentrated blackcurrant fruit and some sweet floral cherry notes around the outside. Pure, structural, with nicely integrated oak. Nice tannins here: they are present but not overpowering, and are resolving really nicely. Powerful and dense but with real finesse.

The first vintage of Chardonnay from Zena Crown, the 2021 Chardonnay Desiderium is more rounded and textural than the 2022. It pours a bright yellow/golden hue and reveals aromas of honeyed lemon, ginger, fresh flowers, caramel apple, and marzipan. Medium to full-bodied, it has a waxy texture and a golden hue, suggesting this wine will age beautifully. This marked Zena Crown's first white wine after a history of exclusively producing Pinot Noir. Drink 2025-2045.

The 2022 Pinot Noir The Sum comes from volcanic soils and includes a high proportion of whole clusters. It pours a medium ruby hue and opens with spice-laden aromatics of cardamom, incense, darker cherries, wild herbs, and cedar. Medium-bodied, it has a lifted, layered complexity and never turns astringent. Structured yet silky, it lingers long after the last sip. Drink 2025-2040.

From the west side of the vineyard near Justice Vineyard of Bethel Heights, the 2022 Pinot Noir Conifer is sourced from marine sedimentary soils. It opens with red cherry, porcini, mossy earth, and savory forest notes. Medium-bodied, it has clarity and purity beneath its savory depth, finishing with chalky tannins and a mouthwatering lift. Drink 2025-2040.

The 2022 Chardonnay Dropstone reveals a more pronounced reductive edge, with matchstick, wet stones, citrus blossom, grapefruit, and a hint of tropical fruit. Bright, laser-like acidity balances a silky mineral texture, and it’s fully dry, with delicate oak spice on the finish. Drink 2025-2037.

The 2022 Chardonnay Upland pours a bright yellow-straw color and was inspired by Pierre Overnoy in the Jura of France. The nose is expressive and savory, with ripe white peaches, stony earth, orange pith, and white mushrooms. Made without sulfur, it remains clean and focused. It’s medium-bodied, with mouthwatering acidity and a chalky, stony texture. Drink over the next 10 years.

The 2022 Pinot Noir Telluric (a new cuvée) is a deep magenta color and opens with aromas of black raspberry, violets, incense, and leather. Sourced from a one-acre block that formerly went to Beaux Frères, It’s snappy and polished on the palate, with crunchy fruit, angular acidity, and silky, chalky tannins. Drink over the next 15 years.

Giant Steps’ Coal River Valley Pinot Noir is from the Nocton vineyard, planted in 1999.

I tasted this beside the Giant Steps Yarra Valley wines and my first words were: “Less floral, more fruit.” This brings the polish, the flavour, the seduction. It offers the freshest of red and black cherries with woodsmoke and cedar running through, a touch of mint maybe, semblances of undergrowth, gorgeous length, the tannin almost seeming to blossom itself. Beautiful wine. Complete.

Intense cedar, cigarbox and garden mulch aromas, the palate nervy and taut, with tension and grip. It still has plenty of energy and zest for its age.

The 2022 Stonestreet ‘Estate’ Chardonnay is a rich, viscous and also very fresh effort that comes from this hot vintage. Buttercream and mango notes parade with cardamom dusted pastry crust and juicy lemon with a dash of sea salt on the palate. Very complex and nicely weighted, enjoy now and over the next eight years. Drink 2025-2033

Dynamic and savory, this Zin offers a keen core of lively acidity and tannins framed by expressive flavors of raspberry, pomegranate, briar patch and smoked pepper that gather tension toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2035

The 2023 Siduri ‘John Sebastiano Vineyard’ Pinot Noir is sourced from this location on sandy as well as rocky/clay soils. The nose shows beautiful red florals alongside dense red and dark fruits and bergamot notes. The palate is refined and generous with great flavor density and tons of underlying finesse. Drink 2025-2038

This location was planted back in 2007 and neighbors the Gary’s Vineyard. This shows crazy good florals on the nose alongside dark fruits and damp, salty soil notes. The palate has amazing volume and tension with seriously good freshness and a silky mouthfeel. Drink 2025-2040

This 2023 ‘Gary’s Vineyard’ comes from Pisoni clonal selection Pinot Noir vines, as this is a slightly warmer site than Rosella’s Vineyard. This comes off lush and dense with a silky mouthful and plenty of tension. Red and dark fruits collide with the loaded of freshness on the palate. Drink 2025-2038