2012 Chardonnay McCrea Vineyard

Kistler's 2012 Chardonnay McCrea Vineyard is precise, lifted and floral in style. White orchard fruit, flowers, mint and green pears meld together in an open, resonant Chardonnay built on subtlety and raciness. Bright veins of salinity underpin the delicate, expressive finish.

Nectarine, orange blossoms, mint, nutmeg and almond all blossom in the 2012 Chardonnay McCrea Vineyard. A rich, voluptuous Chardonnay with lovely textural depth and roundness, the 2012 impresses for its balance and pure class. I expect the McCrea will be one of the more immediate wines in this lineup of 2012s.

The elegance of the 2012 Chardonnay McCrea Vineyard is obvious in its crisp, orange blossom, lemon oil, fresh mineral-laced, medium to full-bodied style. The texture is there, the wine has impressive purity, and a hint of orange marmalade follows through in the flavors as well. This is a lovely, delicately oaked, flavorful Chardonnay to drink over the next 4-6 years.||The Kistler wines were bottled in November/December of 2013 and have had a good nine to ten months to recover from the bottling period. They all performed impressively well, showing perfect acids, great purity and freshness, medium to full-bodied mouthfeels and long finishes. It seems as though there have been a few subtle changes, with perhaps slightly less new oak being used than in the past, and possibly earlier bottling, but these are very minor adjustments in Kistler's Chardonnay style, which is Burgundian, but captures the essence of the beautiful fruit that is available in the viticultural Shangri-La of the diverse microclimates of Sonoma. eRobertParker.com.January, 2015