2024 Lucia by Pisoni, Chardonnay “Estate Cuvée” Santa Lucia Highlands.
The Lucia Chardonnay Estate Cuvée from the Santa Lucia Highlands by winemaker Jeff Pisoni, again is an outstanding wine and certainly, in this 2024, makes the case that Chardonnay is not dead, it is absolutely crystalline precision in the glass, delivering lemon toned citrus, crisp apple, Bosc pear and white peach fruits, along with clove spice, hazelnut, vanilla and stony mineral/stony notes. This pale golden Chardonnay is lively and wonderfully balanced with fresh acidity and texturally rewarding, one of the best Chardonnays in the state. This version, which looks set to be a nice aging wine, is thrilling stuff and definitely on level with the Pinots on the year. Grown on sandy loams at the Pisoni Vineyard 32%, and the Soberanes Vineyard 68%, the Lucia Estate Cuvée of Chardonnay is a wonderful representation of the family’s prime vines. These Lucia wines are made using classic winemaking techniques, with hand-picked and sorted grapes that are fermented with native yeast and aged in carefully selected French oak barrels, with about 12 months in 30% 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, allowing him also to have more time with his wines throughout the winemaking and aging process.
The Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, arguably, as I believe, 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. Grown exclusively from their Pisoni, Garys’ and Soberanes vineyards, the Lucia Estate Cuvée Chardonnay, the Pisoni’s add, is, like their Pinot version, a wonderful representation of the family’s estate vineyards, of which each block is cultivated to the same high standards. As part of their wine growing process, Mark Pisoni picks certain vineyard blocks for this wine, with Jeff Pisoni designating particular lots of free-run wine and hand-selected barrels to be devoted to each of the Santa Lucia Highlands cuvées, like this one, with the goal to create an elevated appellation blend. These wines are handcrafted to capture the essence of the cool-climate SLH that the family has been farming since 1982. The whole lineup here deserves your attention, not just the famous Pinots, the Syrah is killer here and this Chardonnay, plus the single vineyard editions are stunning world class wines.
($55 Est.) 95 Points, grapelive