2023 Alpine Vineyard Chardonnay
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A bright, sophisticated, and precise white, the 2023 Chardonnay Alpine Vineyard is firm in texture and lasting acidity, defined by the taste of tangerine. So reflective of its cool site in a cool vintage, it grew in rocky soils just 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean, happily cocooned by steep slopes and forest. There's so much vitality to the wine, it should continue to astound through 2038 if not longer.
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Average Score
Matthew Luczy, Wine Advocate
Virginie Boone, jebdunnuck.com
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The 2023 Chardonnay Alpine Vineyard is explosively aromatic and supremely polished, delivering a load of cool-toned floral lift and complex layers of lemon confit, salty sea air and mountain herbs. Initially almost austere, it becomes creamier and weightier as it settles on the palate, all the while driven by the hallmark zip of the 2023 vintage. The Alpine has such great inner proportions. Give it a couple of years to harmonize.
The most aromatic, exotic and dazzling of the Chardonnays is the 2023 Chardonnay Alpine Vineyard, opening with an herbal, floral bouquet set against a bed of rich, beeswax aromas and a creamy undercurrent. The palate is mouthwatering and nimble, graceful and pleasantly ethereal, with a touch less minerality than the Mt. Pajaro bottling and a more lifted, buoyant palate than the powerhouse Horseshoe. The finish is long, layered and lifted, lingering with retronasal complexity first hinted at on the nose.