2024 Liquid Farm, Chardonnay, Golden Slope, Sta. Rita Hills AVA, Santa Barbara County.
The Golden Slope Chardonnay by Liquid Farm is one of California’s top notch wines and would be included in most peoples top 10-20 California Chards, which puts it with some mighty wines and this 2024 version is right up there with the best I’ve had from this label. This vintage shows off pure crystalline cool climate character and detail, but with more generosity than the more intense ’23s and there’s loads of layers here with lemon curd, golden delicious apple, Asian pear, peach and fig fruits, along with hints of honeysuckle, tropical notes, wet stones, clove spice, hazelnut brioche and subtle wood/vanilla accents. The wine is backed up with a core of laser beam acidity and that helps liven up the medium/full bodied palate and softens the impression of the lush concentration here, making for a nicely balanced and rewarding Chardonnay. It was really cool recently to taste through the lineup of Jeff Nelson’s Liquid Farm winery and catch up with him, with this outstanding Golden Slope Chardonnay and his fabulous Rosé of Mourvèdre leading the charge and providing a wonderful refreshing start to a quick trip to the Santa Barbara wine country. The Liquid Farm tasting room is located down town Los Olivos, across the street from Stolpman and around the corner from Storm Wines, making it an easy place to visit while you are touring the wine country, with many fine restaurants close by too, including the famous Bar La Côte, which is not to be missed.
Liquid Farm, as I’ve mentioned before, known mostly for their outstanding Burgundy inspired Chardonnay and Pinots, including their beautiful Sta. Rita Hills Golden Slope Chardonnay, seen here again, also they make one of the state’s most prized Rosé wines, in fact it’s called “Pink Crack” by those in the know, and looked to the region of Bandol in Provence for its inspiration. Liquid Farm’s first release was a mere 4 barrels in 2009, their mission was to connect the wine with the place, soils and growers, they wanted to transmit terroir and make vibrant expressions of Chardonnay, with this wine being one of their signature bottlings. The Golden Slope Chardonnay, which I first reviewed with Liquid Farm’s 2012 vintage, is typically done with all native yeast fermentation with 85% neutral wood and 15% new French oak used, aged sur lie close to 15 months, which adds a bit of style, baking spices and a sumptuous volume to this fine Chardonnay. Coming from outstanding vineyard sites in the sandy hillsides, set on the “Diatomaceous Earth”, of the Sta. Rita Hills, which sees a cool blast of the near by Pacific Ocean, the Golden Slope is primarily sourced from vines planted to Dijon Clone 76, that Liquid Farm tends to use almost exclusively for the Golden Slope, as it adds a bit more of that fattiness in the wine, that Nelson says he’s striving for in the wine. This wine is always a treat to experience and I highly recommend it, especially in vintages like this, where the wine offers everything interns of depth, opulence and complexity, but still retaining its cool climate focus and energy.
($68 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive