Stonestreet Upper Barn Vineyard Chardonnay 2018
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Robert
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Winemaker Notes
The Upper Barn Vineyard produces our most transporting Chardonnay, delivering a truly unique wine that can only be crafted from this site 1,800ft up the mountain. The 2018 Upper Barn Vineyard Chardonnay showcases bright ripe peach and fresh ginger on the nose. The palate continues the experience with rich stone fruits, cashew, honey and ample minerality. The texture is both opulent and elegant, with a unique concentration and structure that will only improve with cellaring. This wine is perfectly balanced with a lingering, mouthwatering and round finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chardonnay Upper Barn Vineyard was aged for 10 months in French oak, 46% new. It has a very classy nose of ripe peaches, fresh yellow apples and allspice followed by fresh ginger, cashew and acacia honey plus a waft of sea spray. Full-bodied, rich, satiny and with fantastic intensity and tension, it finishes very long and chalky. YUM!
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Jeb Dunnuck
The flagship Chardonnay, the 2018 Chardonnay Upper Barn Vineyard comes from a high elevation block and spent 11 months in 46% new French oak. It shows the more rounded, supple style of the vintage and has beautiful depth and richness, a seamless texture, and layered notes of white currants, white flowers, crushed stone, and subtle brioche. Its oak is nicely integrated, and this rich, powerful, flawlessly balanced Chardonnay should continue drinking nicely for 7-8 years or more.
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Wine Spectator
Big and powerful, with buttery richness to the ripe pear and Gala apple flavors that are creamy and broad-textured. Shows concentrated spiciness and pastry accents on the textured finish. Drink now through 2026.
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Decanter
A precise, subtle wine with great balance between ripe pineapple and mango, crunchy saline acidity and a hint of roasted nut and vanilla oak. A youthful wine that can be drunk now but will reveal more exotic complexity and nutty character with age.
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In the autumn of 1989, Jess Jackson acquired the Zellerbach winery and renamed it in honor of his late father, Jess Stonestreet Jackson. Stonestreet quickly garnered international acclaim for their powerful reds and luscious whites.
Today, Stonestreet wines are undergoing a transformation, using fruit from Alexander Mountain Estate and new winemaking techniques. Alexander Mountain Estate, with lean, well-draining soils and cooler temperature, produces fruit with smaller berries and more intense color and flavor. Stonestreet is dedicated to fulfilling the promise of Alexander Valley's exceptional and distinctive vineyards. Traditional, Old World methods of hand harvesting, small barrel lot production, native yeast fermentation and bottling each wine unfiltered brings out the best in specific grape varieties and provides the quality framework for each Stonestreet wine.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Home to a diverse array of smaller AVAs with varied microclimates and soil types, Sonoma County has something for every wine lover. Physically twice as large as Napa Valley, the region only produces about half the amount of wine but boasts both tremendous quality and variety. With its laid-back atmosphere and down-to-earth attitude, the wineries of Sonoma are appreciated by wine tourists for their friendliness and approachability. The entire county intends to become a 100% sustainable winegrowing region by 2019.
Sonoma County wines are produced with carefully selected grape varieties to reflect the best attributes of their sites—Dry Creek Valley’s consistent sunshine is ideal for Zinfandel, while the warm Alexander Valley is responsible for rich, voluptuous red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are important throughout the county, most notably in the cooler AVAs of Russian River, Sonoma Coast and Carneros. Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Syrah have also found a firm footing here.