Our take: Medium lemon-gold in color, the 2023 Sojeau Chardonnay is intensely aromatic, revealing layers of lemon oil, Meyer lemon, Golden Delicious apple, and fresh garden herbs, accented by saline minerality, toasted hazelnut, and subtle baking spice. Medium-bodied with vibrant medium-plus acidity, the palate is concentrated yet beautifully poised, offering remarkable purity, texture, and mineral lift. The finish is exceptionally long and persistent, leaving lingering notes of citrus, orchard fruit, and refined toast.

The Chardonnay block at Sojeau reaches the bottom of the slope that experienced mild effect from early April’s frost. Luckily, it was only the lowest lying 10% that saw damage, with those vines still producing a very healthy crop— only staggered behind the rest of the block in ripening.  We picked the upper vines on September 28th, leaving behind the frost affected plants to pick a week later, keeping the single barrel separate.  The wine that makes this blend is from the upper section, blended from a 500L puncheon that was filled directly from the press, balanced by two 228L selections, one new.  After a relatively short primary and secondary fermentation, the wines were put to bed on their lees and rested in barrel for nearly 12 months, before a “dirty” racking (taking all quality lees with it) to stainless steel on September 2nd of 2023.  Aging for a further four and half months over harvest, the wines form a more tensile and cohesive structure in their final stage before a gentle filtration prior to late January bottling.

Salty, briny impact up front, leading to ripe melon, honeysuckle, orange peel, and a thread of kiwi green fruit with a confectionary edge.  Beautiful complexity, with wonderful lift and aromatic perfume lending a white peach, pollen, and lemon oil savoriness.  The attack is well rounded, creamy in the front, with pear, golden apple, and a dense, chewy mid palate.  The lower alcohol leaves a more weightless, flightly sense toward the back, showing in only mild glimpses the fattier, toasty barrel elements that provide a tense foil to the lifted and ethereal tones throughout the wine.  Pretty, deft, and with delicate charm in 2022.