Bright Meyer lemon, fragrant jasmine, white nectarine. Fuji apple, cold sea spray, crunchy Bosc pear. Lemon blossom and fresh honeysuckle, Greek yogurt and nonfat cream. Almost-ripe peach and citrus zest pulse with tremendous energy and tension, managing to remain remarkably fresh and lean despite palpable intensity. Briny saline minerality courses fervently throughout the racy yet balanced attack without overwhelming surprisingly perfumed florals and notes of soft dried hay. Traces of vanilla, clove, and nutmeg emerge but remain largely subdued behind fruit and earth followed by fleeting appearances from cheese rind, cashew, and marshmallow dust. Squarely medium in body - neither big nor thin - with high acidity that brings impressive focus and fight. This 2016 Estate Chardonnay by Spear Vineyards & Winery is delicious and brilliantly crafted example of the new wave of California Chardonnay.

Full bodied, buttery, and round are all words once thought to be synonymous with California Chardonnay, but popular style in the Golden State seem to be rapidly shifting. This bottling, crafted by Spear Vineyards & Winery using Chardonnay sourced from their estate vineyards in Santa Barbara's Santa Rita Hills, is an excellent example of the balanced, restrained, and nearly-Burgundian style that is now being pursued by California's elite Chardonnay producers. With its focus pinned on expressing pure fruit and minerality in lieu of ripeness or new oak this wine absolutely nails Chardonnay's truest and most beautiful varietal characteristics, and also embraces the sandy, salty, diatom-laden soil of the Santa Rita Hills from which it comes. This is an exceptionally well executed wine that perfectly marries complexity and pure deliciousness.