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Mount Eden’s 2018 Chardonnay offers a fabulous interplay of richness and energy. A wine of linear intensity, the 2018 could use a few more years in bottle to be at its best, but it is super-impressive, even now, in what is very clearly the early going. Lemon confit, mint, orange peel, spice and light butter notes all build into the articulate, polished finish. This is such a classy wine. Give it a few years to come together.Antonio Galloni | 95 AGHoneyed nut, tangerine peel and baked apple aromas show on the nose of this bottling. A zesty acidity enlivens the palate from front to back, carrying toasty flavors of pan-seared apple, cashew, sea salt and white flower. Wine Enthusiast | 94 WEA Burgundy lover’s Chardonnay from the Santa Cruz Mountains, the 2018 Chardonnay Estate is another terrific effort from this estate. Lots of honeyed citrus, nectarine, toast, crushed stone, and white flower notes define the bouquet, and it opens beautifully with time in the glass, gaining both richness and complexity. Medium-bodied, it stays tight and compact on the palate, with bright yet integrated acidity, solid mid-palate depth, and a great finish. As with all of Patterson’s wines, it’s brilliantly made, balanced, and well worth checking out.Jeb Dunnuck | 93 JDMount Eden’s chardonnay vines are descendants of cuttings that Paul Masson brought from Burgundy and planted at his La Cresta Vineyard, and where Martin Ray sourced the plant material when he established Mount Eden on a nearby ridge, 2,000 feet above the Pacific, facing east. The contemporary vines, mostly planted in the mid-1990s, are tended by Jeffrey Patterson who made this rich and powerful 2018. Fermented in French oak barrels (50 percent new), the wine’s smokiness seems tied as much to the earth as to the wood. It’s savory and lemony, with a firm cut that should serve it well through several years of bottle aging.Wine & Spirits | 92 W&SThere’s a luscious and creamy texture to the concentrated ripe apple, pear and quince flavors that are filled with cooking spice accents. Ends with sage honey nuances on the rich finish. Drink now through 2024. 1,288 cases made. Wine Spectator | 91 WS

Brought up in 20% new French oak, the 2018 Chardonnay Los Alamos reveals a light gold hue as well as a beautiful bouquet of stone fruits, toasted bread, almond paste, and honeysuckle. Beautifully textured, medium to full-bodied, and seamless on the palate, it’s a gorgeous Chardonnay as well as a brilliant value!Jeb Dunnuck | 95 JDLemon blossom, light pecan and classic oak aromas show on the nose of this bottling. The chalky palate and fresh, lingering acidity ride through tight lines of lemon peel and vanilla, which extend deep into the finish.Wine Enthusiast | 94 WETasting Gavin Chanin’s majestic chardonnay bottling from Los Alamos is like standing on a hilltop in that vineyard and letting the sea spray imperceptibly coat your lips. Beneath the cinnamon spice and the citrus brightness is a kind of bracing, briny green sensation, reminding one taster of agretti,the salty springtime green that finds its way into Italian salads. The wine is bracing and delicious, with the structure to age ten years or more.Wine & Spirits | 94 W&SThe nose is dominated by orange rind and starfruit with a subtle note of struck flint behind. The palate is rich, beaming and wide, exuding the sunshine and sandy soils that define this site. The Los Alamos Vineyard bottling is typically the most tropical, flashy and forward of the Chanin Chardonnays, as is the case in the 2018 vintage. 18 months in mostly neutral barrique, full malolactic fermentation. Drinking Window 2020 - 2035.Decanter | 93 DECThe 2018 Chardonnay Los Alamos Vineyard is a very pretty, airy wine. Candied lemon peel, almond paste and chamomile are all laced together. Tangerine oil and tropical accents add an exotic flair as this mid-weight Chardonnay opens nicely in the glass.Antonio Galloni | 92 AG

Not yet bottled, the 2018 Chardonnay Sanford & Benedict is still resting in 20% new French oak. Coming from a great site on the southern side of the Sta. Rita Hills, it offers a rocking bouquet of lemon curd, chamomile, toasted bread, spice, and a touch of crushed stone-like flinty minerality. Beautifully textured, medium to full-bodied, and elegant on the palate, it’s another brilliant wine from this estate.Jeb Dunnuck | 95-97 JDAromas of moss and kumquats combine with decadently ripe, yet still refreshing, limpid fruit. The textured palate reflects the stony minerality of the nose in a snappy, svelte package. It spent 20 months in mostly neutral barrique, and is a blend of the own-rooted 1971 vines as well as younger plantings. Drinking Window 2020 - 2040.Decanter | 95 DEC

The 2019 Chardonnay Horseshoe Vineyard is laced with the essence of crushed rocks, white pepper, orchard fruit, white flowers, chalk and mint. It is a bit less forthcoming than the Alpine Chardonnay. Saline notes build into the palate staining finish. This classically austere young Chardonnay just needs time in bottle. Tasted next to the Alpine, the Horseshoe has more mid-palate weight and feeling of phenolic intensity. The differences between the two are remarkable considering the sites are just 400 yards apart. The Horseshoe is planted on Monterey shale, while the soils at Alpine are Purisima, a formation that is about 8 million years younger. Such is the complexity of the Santa Cruz Mountains.Antonio Galloni | 96 AGRipe Meyer lemons, crushed stone, white flower, and exotic spice notes all emerge from the 2019 Chardonnay Horseshoe Vineyard. Rich and medium-bodied, it has a beautiful mid-palate, integrated acidity, and a great finish. It shows the slightly more rounded, supple style of the vintage, yet I love its density and length. Give it a year or two and enjoy over the following decade.Jeb Dunnuck | 95 JD(Chardonnay “Horseshoe Vineyard”- Rhys Vineyards (Santa Cruz Mountains)) The 2019 Horseshoe Vineyard chardonnay from Rhys is one of the low octane whites from the winery in this vintage, as it comes in at a cool 12.3 percent. However, the wine is very expressive on the nose, wafting from the glass in a refined blend of apple, pear, fruit blossoms, a beautiful base of soil tones, a touch of hazelnut and vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is vibrant, full-bodied and tightly-knit, with lovely intensity of flavor and transparency, a fine girdle of acidity and a long, nascently complex and promising finish. This will need a few years to open up, but should prove to be a long-lived and lovely middleweight once it is ready to drink. (Drink between 2024-2035)John Gilman | 93 JG

The 2020 Chardonnay Sanford & Benedict Vineyard is beautiful and expressive this vintage with a singular personality that combines mineral character with full, ripe fruit and soaring floral character. White peach, nectarine and acacia are complemented by touches of charcuterie, beeswax and flint on the nose. The palate unfolds its exotic, perfumed flavors slowly, boasting an expansive, mouth-coating texture and sparks of juicy acidity calling you back for another sip on the long finish.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 97 RPThe 2020 Chardonnay Sanford & Benedict Vineyard is an astoundingly beautiful wine. Exotic, wild and beguiling, the 2020 possesses striking aromatic presence and gorgeous overall depth. Orange peel, spice, lemon oil, mint, ripe pear and hazelnut build in an unctuous, layered Chardonnay that dazzles from start to finish. Superb!Vinous Media | 95 VMThe 2020 Chardonnay Sanford & Benedict Vineyard (20% new French oak) has a touch of chamomile in its perfumed aromatics of golden apple, honeyed toast, spice, and subtle green almonds. Complex and nuanced aromatically, it’s medium-bodied on the palate, has high yet nicely integrated acidity, terrific balance, and outstanding length.Jeb Dunnuck | 94 JDCrisp and light aromas of apple, honey and tangerine peel are mellow and delicate on the nose of this vineyard-designate bottling from one of California’s most historically important vineyards. The grippy texture is well managed on the palate, as it lingers long through citrus peel, nectarine and salted, almost savory white fruit flavors. Wine Enthusiast | 94 WE

The 2020 Chardonnay Los Alamos Vineyard opens with lemon and saline tones before blossoming to exotic streaks of panna cotta and honey. Medium-bodied, silky and richly fruited, it offers a balance of concentrated, ripe fruit on a bright, translucent frame and finishes with great length and anchoring texture.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 95 RPClassic high-quality Chardonnay notes of orchard fruits, classy oak, brioche, and honeysuckle all emerge from the 2020 Chardonnay Los Alamos Vineyard, a medium-bodied, pure, balanced, straight-up impressive white from this team. With plenty of mid-palate depth, it brings bright acidity, good precision and focus, and outstanding length, and while I like it today, I see no reason this won’t evolve for 7-8 years, if not over a decade.Jeb Dunnuck | 94 JDThe 2020 Chardonnay Los Alamos Vineyard is bright, airy and lifted. In this vintage, the Los Alamos Chardonnay has a bit more texture and mid-palate pliancy than is often the case. That’s not a bad thing at all. In fact, orchard fruit, white flowers, spice and tangerine oil build in the oily, beautifully textured finish.Antonio Galloni | 94 AGGavin Chanin’s Los Alamos chardonnay in 2020 is a departure from prior vintages, which are notable for their lean energy. This wine starts off with a rich attack, warm and fresh, bearing beautiful salted lemon fruit flavors. It’s the sort of wine that takes days to open, the richness and smokiness receding with air as the wine falls into an elegant balance.Wine & Spirits | 94 W&SLight pear flesh, lemon butter and chiseled sandstone aromas show on the nose of this bottling. Warmer flavors of pear flesh, lime juice and chalk make for a fresh, fun and approachable palate.Wine Enthusiast | 93 WE

The 2020 Chardonnay Patterson Vineyard opens with tempered matchstick-like reduction that gives way to nuanced aromas of baked apples, quince, lemon and lime blossom and toast. The medium-bodied palate strikes a fine balance between satiny, concentrated fruit and focused acidity, and the finish is long, layered and detailed.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 97 RPA strong mineral streak of rainy sidewalk and chalk kick off the focused nose of this bottling, which opens ever so slightly toward lime pith, jicama and nectarine. The chiseled stone texture and flavor of the palate is pleasantly relentless, wrapping around the light lime and green-lemon flavors.Wine Enthusiast | 96 WEThe 2020 Chardonnay Patterson is quite powerful. It shows a distinctly mineral and savory profile that is intriguing, but also bit out of character for the Sta. Rita Hills. Sage, mint, dried flowers and lightly honeyed notes are pushed forward, while fruit is very much in the background. It’s a compelling wine in this stellar lineup from Sandhi.Antonio Galloni | 94 AGJuicy acidity and a note of salted caramel mingle with mango, green apple and tangerine flavors at the core of this succulent white, which is vibrant on the finish. Drink now through 2027. 229 cases made.Wine Spectator | 92 WS

Tasted at the beginning of 2023, a reductive quality was still obscuring bright, penetrating green apple and kiwi flavours with a smoky, earthen veil. Still, it’s a gorgeously sleek, richly textured wine with a pulsating core of acidity and salty mineral intensity.Decanter | 95 DECLovely texture and density, showing dried apple, fresh ginger and pastry dough. Layered, with phenolic tension. Drink or hold.James Suckling | 94 JSThe 2021 Chardonnay Sta. Rita Hills has alluring aromas of white peach, freshly baked bread, panna cotta and matchstick with savory undertones. The medium-bodied palate has dynamic flavors that range from ripe fruit to matchstick and saline. It has a focused spine of acidity, a pleasing touch of textural grip and a very long, layered finish. It’s complex yet delicious straight from the bottle.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 93 RPThe 2021 Chardonnay (Sta. Rita Hills) is terrific. Citrus confit, white flowers, almond, chamomile and dried herbs all run through this super-expressive Chardonnay. There’s a touch of phenolic intensity, along with a kiss of reduction, that add character. Almost all of this fruit is now estate.Vinous Media | 92 VMComplex and seamless, there’s plenty to admire in this white wine. Shows spiced, poached pear, dried apple, grilled lemon and fresh tangerine flavors that are juicy and generous, with details of sage, white pepper and toasted sesame seed on the finish. Drink now. 4,536 cases made.Wine Spectator | 92 WSThere’s a strong streak of tarry minerality to the nose of this bottling, which shows brisk lemon peel and even petrol on the tightly wound nose. The palate is stony as well, with a potent acidity slicing through lemon-peel flavors. Wine Enthusiast | 91 WE

The textural component to this wine, and all of those from Rhys, is worth the price alone. The nose starts with aromas of lemon curd, baked orange and a light nutty tone before the palate’s chalky texture engages the entire mouth as citrus flavors abound.Wine Enthusiast | 95 WEThe 2021 Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains is a peek at the stellar produce of Rhys’s 2021 single-vineyard white wines. The nose opens with fresh, racy aromas of sea spray, lemon curd and Granny Smith apple. The mid-palate displays a level of creamy richness that takes substantial cellaring to unlock in the rest of the lineup. The signature tension and angularity of the Rhys style are present, albeit with a welcomed softness and generosity of texture. Readers holding this admirable array of wines should start here and hold off on the single-site wines for at least a few more years.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 93 RPI love the nose on the 2021 Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains, which feels lifted and briny with aromas of wildflowers, white peaches, honeycomb, and candle smoke. A blend of three vineyards, it’s medium-bodied to full-bodied and rounded through the midpalate, with a silky mouthfeel and a long, savory finish. As with the Anderson Valley Chard, this is going to drink well now or over the coming 6-7 years, and it’s a great value.Jeb Dunnuck | 93 JDThe 2021 Chardonnay (Santa Cruz Mountains) is a gorgeous appellation level wine, and also a wine that will drink well with minimal cellaring, unlike most of the 2021s. Lemon confit, marzipan, dried flowers and chamomile all grace this soft, open-knit Chardonnay from Rhys. Bright saline notes extend the super-expressive finish. Terrific.Vinous Media | 92 VMBright and distinctive, with notes of tangerine, orange blossoms and lemon curd that show a hint of toasted sesame. Offers aromatic details of fennel, nutmeg and dried ginger, with a note of sea spray and a long, expressive finish. Drink now. 1,200 cases made.Wine Spectator | 92 WS

Lastly, the 2022 Chardonnay Rosemary’s Vineyard is another Arroyo Grande release that saw 14 months in 30% new French oak. It’s a slightly more savory, masculine styled effort that has both citrus and stone fruits, lots of crushed stone minerality, honeyed white flowers, blanched almonds, and subtle spicy oak aromas and flavors. It has rock-solid concentration, bright yet integrated acidity, and a gorgeous finish. It’s up with the finest Chardonnay in the vintage.Jeb Dunnuck | 96 JDThe 2022 Chardonnay Rosemary’s Vineyard is another gorgeous Chardonnay from Brian Talley and his team. Complex and multi-dimensional, the Rosemary’s is wonderfully dynamic from start to finish. Layers of rich orchard fruit intermingle with bright acids and light tropical accents that add raciness. I especially admire its complex, multi-dimensional personality.Vinous Media | 95 VMA stunningly beautiful Chardonnay, the Rosemary’s is from the coolest site, the cool Talley Estate. Planted in 1987 to complement the Pinot Noir planted across the estate driveway. Within three to five years, this wine will become ethereal. Beguiling aromatics of lemon verbena, English hawthorn and concentrated grilled fleshy pineapple with a kiss of herbaceous wild tarragon. The texture is extraordinary, and 14 months of sur lie elevage in 30% new French oak has imparted intense lemon curd flavours, lemon oil and grilled lemon peel. There’s a soaring minerality marked by briny sea air, bright white pepper and savoury notes of cardamom mark the finish. (Tasted from bottle #5631.)Decanter | 95 DECA generous, plush, delicious wine with ample baked-fruit flavors and spicy vanilla bean accents. Medium-bodied with energizing acidity and a lingering finish. Estate grown on the Talley family’s original vineyard site. Sustainable. Drink or hold.James Suckling | 94 JSAged for 14 months in 30% new French oak, the 2022 Chardonnay Rosemary’s Vineyard splits the difference between a fresh, vibrant frame and toasty, punchy richness. The nose is reminiscent of a classic California Chardonnay, albeit with notably more verve and zest. The palate is powerful, yellow-fruited and creamy, leading to a finish that combines butterscotch-laden power with saline, stony refreshment.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 92 RP