2019 Lindquist Family Christy & Wise Chardonnay Magnum
This wine is 100% Chardonnay from the Christy & Wise Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills. For those of you familiar with the boundaries of that AVA, this vineyard is at the northwestern edge, next to the Duvarita Vineyard, which lies just outside of the western boundary.
Amazingly, in my 42 years of making wine on the Central Coast, this is the first wine I’ve personally made from Santa Rita Hills. Having shared our winery since 1989 with Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat, I’ve seen plenty of grapes come into the winery from this special AVA, primarily from the Sanford & Benedict Vineyard.
2019 was a somewhat normal weather year, with typical daytime highs in the Lompoc area around 70° and nighttime lows around 52°. These grapes were harvested on September 13th, just as a mini heat wave was getting started! We got them off in great condition at 22.4° brix, 3.30 pH and 7.6 acidity. The crop was small, less than one ton per acre, but for young vines, the flavors were beautiful!
The grapes were whole cluster pressed and the juice chilled overnight, then transferred into new Francois Freres Burgundy barrels for fermentation and aging. It was aged for the first year, on the lees, in the new barrels…then racked, fined and cold stabilized before returning to neutral barrels for an additional six months…so total 18 months barrel aging. It was bottled without filtration in April 2021.
It’s a Chardonnay that will benefit with some bottle age, as of this writing it was only bottled a few weeks ago. It is an elegant expression of the grape at only 12.5% alcohol, but with a persistent intensity and nerve. If you have a cellar, and like to put chardonnay down for a bit, I’d recommend at least 3-5 years, and it certainly will age gracefully for many years beyond!
Cheers, Bob Lindquist
April 2021
*93 points Antonio Galloni Vinous
*93 points Wine Enthusiast
*93 points Wine & Spirits
*92 Jeb Dunnuck
