2020 Lindquist Family Christy & Wise Chardonnay

This wine is 100% from the Christy & Wise Vineyard in the Sta Rita Hills AVA near Lompoc. These are young, head trained vines grown in very light sandy and calcareous soil. The vineyard is Demeter Certified Biodynamic. 2020 was a warmer than normal vintage with a crazy heat wave over Labor Day weekend. Luckily, we harvested these grapes on September 1st before the worst of the heat.

The grapes came in at 21.5° brix, 3.17 pH and 9.2 acidity. The grapes were whole cluster pressed, the juice chilled overnight, then transferred to new Francois Freres French oak Burgundy barrels for fermentation. I like to rack the juice “dirty”, which mean including a lot of the juice lees going into the barrel. This adds richness and helps integrate the juice with the new wood. The wine went through complete malo, and was aged in the new barrels, on the lees for the first year. We then racked off of the lees, did a light fining and cold stabilization before returning the wine to neutral barrel for an additional 6 months.

The crop was small in 2020, and we only had enough grapes for two barrels of this exotic Chardonnay. It was bottled without filtration in April 2022.

Unlike the 2019 from Christy & Wise, which is one of the favorite Chardonnays I’ve ever made, this 2020 is much more lifted and forward. It has the balance for age worthiness, but I’m going to drink it while waiting for the 2019 to reach its peak! Cheers! Bob Lindquist August 2022

*93 points Antonio Galloni Vinous