2020 Estate Chardonnay
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Tasting notes
Winemaker Matt Dees loves to call his Santa Barbara Chardonnays “refrigerated sunshine”, after the cool sea breezes felt in the sunny Santa Rita Hills AVA. It certainly sums up this wine. The Estate Chardonnay is predominantly produced from their single-vineyard plots, Radian and Bentrock. It has a lovely freshness, electric-like acidity alongside ripe mandarin fruit and a zest-lime hit. The wine has great energy and a vibrant mouth-watering salinity on the finish. This wine offers fantastic quality for the money and is as racy as Californian Chardonnay gets.
Critic scores
Average Score
James Suckling
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
Restrained nose but there is green-apple fruit, toasty complexity and a honeyed note too. The persistence moves into a hard-cheese sort of quality. Super-tangy with beautifully defined fruit and a lovely twist of sour citrus. (RH)
Aromas of pie crust dough, lightly cooked apple and white peach. Dried flower. Flinty. Mineral. Medium-bodied with creamy texture and citrusy at the end. Drink now.
The 2020 Chardonnay Estate is terrific and has classic Sta. Rita Hills character. Salted citrus, melon, white flowers, and a kiss of peach all emerge on the nose, and it’s medium-bodied, with a supple, elegant mouthfeel, outstanding balance, and a great finish. It’s well worth the price of admission and will keep for 4-6 years.
About the producer
The Hilt is the Santa Rita Hills project owned by sports and property mogul billionaire Stan Kroenke, who also owns Screaming Eagle in Napa Valley and the Jonata estate in the California’s Ballard Canyon AVA.