Sandhi Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay 2020
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Winemaker Notes
The wine has aromas of Meyer lemon peel and pith with hints of raw ginger, honey, and green apple all under a cloak of crushed white rock. The texture offers a restrained fleshiness on the mid-palate with a focused and bright saline finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chardonnay Sta. Rita Hills is Chablisienne in style, opening with matchstick and roasted almond that give way to pure scents of lemon peel and chalk. The light-bodied palate is juicy and bright with transparent citrus flavors and a touch of texture to anchor the long, softly leesy finish.
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Wine Spectator
Lip-smacking fresh ginger, pomelo and apple flavors are focused, sleek and intense, with a note of sea salt and celery leaf on the finish.
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Wine & Spirits
With its scents of puffed grain and yellow fruits this seems straightforward, but the lees notes have an ambient-yeast complexity, spicy like rye or spelt, with clean lines and an angular tension for seared scallops.
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Sandhi is a small production California winery focusing on select vineyards from the Sta. Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County. Sandhi was founded in 2010 by Rajat Parr, the wine director for Michael Mina Restaurants, and winemaker, Sashi Moorman.
Sandhi represents a union essential to the production of wine: the collaboration between man, earth, and vine. The willing participation of all three elements is necessary to make great wine, and the winegrower must make this collaboration rich and nourishing for all involved. An understanding of these joint efforts informs Sandhi’s exploration of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines throughout the Santa Barbara County terroir.
The individual vineyards from which these grapes originate–some legendary, some new–have been exhaustively vetted for character, personality, and balance. Employing the wisdom and talents of people who know the vineyards, Sandhi is dedicated to making wines of finesse, minerality, acidity, structure and balance. Wine achieves power and beauty through the seamless integration of these qualities, and this is the inspiration for Sandhi. Wines exhibiting extreme ripeness, alcohol, oak, and other discordant exaggerations cannot truly express a specific vineyards terroir.
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.
A superior source of California Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills is the coolest, westernmost sub-region of the larger Santa Ynez Valley appellation within Santa Barbara County. This relatively new AVA is unquestionably one to keep an eye on.
The climate of Sta. Rita Hills is a natural match for Chardonnay and Pinot noir, thanks to the crisp ocean breezes and well-drained, limestone-rich calcareous soil. Here, grapes ripen just enough, while retaining brisk acidity and harmonious balance.