2021 Rivers-Marie Chardonnay Platt Vineyard

A youthful gold with green highlights, the 2021 Chardonnay Platt Vineyard has incredible aromatics of fresh sea spray, wildflowers, and ripe apple. It offers fantastic focus with linear drive, with crunchy green apple, Meyer lemon, and crushed earth, and it’s packed with mineral texture and delicate toast on the long finish. This needs some time to settle, but it has outstanding energy and longevity ahead of it. Drink 2025-2037. Owned by Thomas Rivers Brown and Genevieve Marie Welsh and based in Calistoga, Rivers Marie specializes in single varietal, single vineyard expressions of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon. One of Sonoma's most prolific winemakers and consultants, Thomas Rivers Brown grew up in South Carolina and later went on to work at Turley before carving his own path forward. I met with Thomas and Will Segui, the assistant winemaker, at the Calistoga winery this May to taste the wines for this report. Having been hit incredibly hard in 2020, their 2021s are showing even better than I could have anticipated from last year’s barrel samples. These are some of the best wines I have ever tasted from Rivers Marie, with exceptional balance and finesse.