Las Jaras Santa Rita Hills Chardonnay 2021 750ml

The organically grown grapes for this wine come from four blocks of Spear Vineyard that was planted in the late-2000s. This vineyard is located on Hwy 246 on the northeastern end of Mt Carmel and is actually on the opposite side of where Sea Smoke sits. The part of the world is so incredibly gorgeous. It is quite cold here, which gives us a lot of hang time to develop intense flavors. The vineyard faces north-east and is on the sandiest of soils; which require irrigation. The vineyard’s aspect allows for a bright and mineral laden wine.

With Chardonnay meant to express minerality over power, the day you pick is of paramount importance. Since this was our first time working with this vineyard, we actually picked it four separate times to try to figure out what our ideal ripeness level should be in subsequent years. We have found that like our Chenin Blanc, fruit should be picked as soon as the fruit has a hint of ripe flavor, which in this case is at about 19-20 brix. We whole-cluster pressed the grapes as soon as they got into the winery and avoided skin contact. We pressed to a stainless-steel tank, added 10ppm sulfur and settled at cellar temp for 24 hours. The hard press wine was kept separate and not added back. After this period, we racked the juice with the light lees to another tank and warmed it up to initiate fermentation naturally. Once the fermentation started to tick, we transferred the juice to a mix of new and used Stockinger 600L demi muids and one used 800L barrel from Schneckenleitner. After nearly a year in barrel, we transferred the wine to stainless steel tanks for six additional months of aging. We did not fine or filter this wine.