Presqu'ile Winery Santa Barbara County Chardonnay, 2020

We featured Presqu’ile Winery’s Syrah in the early early days of the Wine Club, and it has remained a customer favorite. We really like their Chardonnay, too. With a good amount of oaky vanilla notes alongside apple, pear and light citrus (it can even lean a bit tropical), this bottle is a great California chard! Try it when you’re grilling or alongside a nice Salmon fillet.

This chardonnay from Santa Barbara County, California spends eleven months in neutral French oak. The grapes are selected from an array of Dijon clones grown from two vineyards (60% Bien Nacido, 40% Presquile) and handcrafted with minimal intervention. There is no added yeast in the process.

In 2007, after an extensive search that spanned the West Coast of the United States, the Murphy family acquired an ideal unplanted 200-acre property in the hills of the Santa Maria Valley. Over the next two years, the Murphys, along with Santa Barbara County Vineyard Manager Jim Stollberg and Winemaker Dieter Cronje, meticulously planned the design of the Presqu’ile Vineyard with an emphasis on diversity. To achieve their vision, they mapped the site's deep sandy soils, distinct airflows, patterns of sunlight, hillside angles and elevations. With the insights derived from these measurements, they planted the vineyard to maximize the diversity of row directions, spacing, clones and rootstocks.