2022 Pahlmeyer Chardonnay Napa Valley

JS97 Extremely rich, ripe and creamy, this luxurious wine ferments and ages in 90% new French barrels, and a majority of the grapes come from Old Wente clone vines from Atlas Peak AVA vineyards. Aromas of butterscotch, vanilla bean, poached pears and toasted baguette lead to an incredibly silky palate of ripe fruit and oak spices that build as you sip and linger long on the finish. Drink or hold.

DEC95 Having toured Stagecoach vineyard with Pahlmeyer winemaker Katie Vogt and talked at length about her strict focus on expressing site, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Chardonnay wines I’d sampled. Near the end of the year, I got my hands on the 2022 release of this iconic label’s Chardonnay, and it’s the kind of structured, powerful, intensely flavorful Chardonnay that you’d want to stockpile in the cellar. It conveys a duality of power and restraint. Knockout aromas of white peach, pineapple, and salted lemon peel, coconut, and wet stone. Full and rich with an extraordinary depth of sweet, creamy fruit that inundates the palate, suspended by an equally penetrating core of saline minerality infused with a luxurious finish of almond pastry notes, dried apricots, and white flowers. One of the most memorable young Chardonnays I tasted all year. Aged in 100% new Francois Ferrer heavy toast oak barrels. Number four of my top 10 wines of 2023.