2023 Lucia by Pisoni, Chardonnay, Soberanes Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands.
Tasted with Mark Pisoni at the Sun, Wind & Wine Santa Lucia Highlands celebration, this 2023 Lucia Soberanes Chardonnay absolutely stunned me, in fact it may have been the best wine I tasted during this event and shows just how great this 2023 vintage was in the region. The richly textured Soberanes Chardonnay, made from old Wente clone and a special Montrachet selection, is light gold and shines beautifully in the glass, it builds wonderfully on the palate with fresh lemony tones, apple, pear and golden fig fruits leading the way, along with clove spice, orange flowers, hazelnut, a touch of toasty wood, wet stones and very subtle tropical essences. The limited-production Lucia wines are created using classic, gentle and thoughtful winemaking techniques. Hand-picked and sorted grapes are fermented with native yeast and aged in carefully selected French oak barrels, with, usually, about 11 months in 40% new wood. Jeff Pisoni’s Santa Rosa state-of-the-art winemaking facility, where he and his wife make their collection of awesome wines, uses gravity flow as part of a custom design, which was conceived to merge the estate vineyards and winery, allowing him also to have more time with his wines throughout the winemaking and aging process. Big thanks to Mark Pisoni for sharing this one, a gorgeous Garys’ Pinot and a special library bottle of 2012 Pisoni Estate Pinot Noir in magnum!
The Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, as I’ve mentioned many times, arguably was made famous by Gary Pisoni and his family, and their wines, is part of the western mountains of the Salinas Valley and is now Monterey’s most prized appellation these days. This range faces east, receiving the gentle morning sunshine and enjoys the cold climate conditions from the near by Pacific Ocean. Pisoni says their Southeastern-facing bench lands sits in and above that morning fog and is cooled by coastal breezes funneled in from the deep depths of the Monterey Bay. Coming from grapes grown exclusively from their Pisoni, Garys’ and Soberanes vineyards, the Lucia wines are an amazing collection of terroir driven offerings. As part of their wine growing process, overseen by Mark Pisoni, they select certain vineyard blocks for their wine, with Jeff Pisoni designating particular lots of free-run wine and hand-select barrels to be devoted to each of Santa Lucia Highlands cuvées, like this one. The 2023 vintage was extra long and cool, giving the wines, especially this one, a longer hang time, retaining loads of fresh acidity, making for wines of complexity, vibrancy, depth and balance, as this one shows to perfection, it is hard to imagine it getting better than this. The Soberanes Vineyard has really matured nicely and is a top site in the SLH region, it provides some outstanding fruit to customers and the Pisoni family, in particular Pinot Noir, Syrah, maybe my favorite, and Chardonnay, as seen here.
($60 Est.) 96 Points, grapelive