Region: Sonoma, California

Varietal: 100% Chardonnay

Tasting notes: Myrna’s focused intensity of fruit and texture reflects its two extreme mountain and hillside vineyard sites.  The word Myrna translates to “beloved”, a reflection of Far Mountain’s feelings about truly great Chardonnay: wines that can translate from their sites intense minerality, texture and a dazzling spectrum of flavors. Lemon oil, white flowers, chalk and mint give the 2019 a brilliant upper register that almost comes as a surprise once the wine shows its superb depth and persistence. This highly expressive, nuanced Chardonnay has a lot going on and plenty to offer.

Producer: Isolated. Awe-inspiring. Pulsing with beauty. If you have walked in the mountains of the Sonoma Valley, you know the feeling: warm sunlight filtering through groves of redwood and oak. The mellow golden fields of grass. The coolness in the breeze, an echo of the Pacific. The scents that you seem to absorb through your skin. Far Mountain is based on the belief that some of the greatest potential for wine in California – and anywhere in the world – exists in remote pockets in the mountains of the Sonoma Valley. Over the last three decades, Mai Errazuriz and her husband Rodrigo Soto have worked for a number of leading wineries in North and South America.  Far Mountain is a name they chose in trying to describe the vineyard sites they work with and the greater settings in which those vineyards lie.

Vineyard and Winemaking: The grapes were whole cluster pressed at fractional pressures, collected separately, and left to settle for 24-36 hours. The objective is to expose the must to oxygen at this stage, for elements prone to oxidation to drop out, and to have multiple pressings to follow through the aging process. The must then goes right to barrels, 18% of which were new, with 1, 2, 3 and 4 year old barrels making up the rest of the total. There is lees contact throughout the aging, with stirring a bit more frequently early in the aging, down to once a month near the end. These phenolics from the lees, accentuated by the thick skins of the old Wente clone from Bald Mountain, develop into the notably sappy yet soft texture of the wine. 71% from Bald Mountain and 29% from Thornton Vineyard.