($65) Yellow-gold. Strikingly complex aromas of poached pear, toasted grain, iodine and mineral salts, with a suave floral undertone. Palate-staining citrus and stone fruit flavors offer an uncanny blend of finesse and power, with a expression of smoky minerality that reminded me of a Montrachet from Marc Colin. Refuses to let go of the palate, finally finishing with strong iodine, toasty lees and pear skin qualities. A really extraordinary new wine from Kistler, from eight-year-old vines in the Parmalee-Hill Vineyard, planted on rocky soil in southwest Sonoma, near the Carneros line.

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A new offering from Steve Kistler is the 2005 Chardonnay Stone Flat Vineyard, a Sonoma Coast site located close to the Durell Vineyard. This classic 2005 displays a solid core of intense, concentrated fruit, medium to full body, and high acid, which provides superb freshness and buttresses the wine's super intensity and richness. It possesses abundant mineral, white citrus, and orange blossom characteristics as well as beautiful purity. Kistler Vineyards, undeniably one of the world's finest winemaking estates, is run with passionate dedication to detail and quality by Steve Kistler and Mark Bixler. It is wines like these that keep an old critic like me inspired and energized.

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