Fall Release Estate Vineyard Chardonnay
2016

Winemaker’s Notes

The wines from our Estate vineyards are typically built to age the longest, and this 2016 bottling is no exception. The highly eroded coastal soils of our DuMOL Estate, coupled with the pedigree old clone vine material, produce a wine full of tension and tightly coiled power—a nuanced beauty and natural expression that reveals itself with time. The high vine density of our O’Connell and Kearney Estate parcels provides an additional element of complexity to the final wine: Narrow row spacing naturally shades the grape clusters from the full force of the California summer sun, retaining more of the delicate, savory nuances of the grapes themselves. This makes for a wine overflowing with European-style vibrancy, steeliness and mineral-dominated intensity, with less of an emphasis on sweet golden fruit.

I recommend opening in mid-2019 and drinking over the following six years, decanting an hour before enjoying over the course of an evening. The aromas are first dominated by flint, spearmint and sweet sage. With aeration, lemon and lime flavors peek out before introducing green apple intensity. Tremendous richness and depth to the mid-palate are a pure translation of the vines themselves — their extract, their intrinsic concentration. While the wine is taut and muscular, there’s an unmatched richness lurking in the background, ready to reveal itself with a little cellar time. This truly is world-class Chardonnay in a serious, vineyard-driven style. Drink between 2019 and 2024.

Andy Smith