When I moved to California from New York in 2009, having spent the previous many years working with mostly Italian (and other European) wines, my sommelier peers in the Golden State were eager to show me the local wares. To their surprise, I was eager to try them, and to my surprise, the first of my prejudices to be demolished was my disdain for California Chardonnay.
By then, I think, my perceptions were already out of date: Across the board—with some famous exceptions, of course—California Chardonnay was skewing crisper, brighter, and less buttery/oaky. Sandhi Wines proprietor Rajat Parr and his winemaker partner, Sashi Moorman, have done a lot to advance this more linear and balanced style of California Chardonnay, but they’d be the first to tell you that such wines have always existed in California. They’ve been hiding in plain sight (I think of enduring classics like Au Bon Climat and Stony Hill, among many others). Parr’s notoriety as a well-traveled sommelier and Burgundy expert has helped shift the tide of Chardonnay fashion—as did his co-founding of the “In Pursuit of Balance” tasting series—but the wheels were already in motion. And when I taste a wine like Sandhi’s 2015 Santa Rita Hills Chardonnay, I’m enthralled by California. Yes, you can have minerality and nerve alongside the luminous ripeness of Santa Barbara County. And yes, when Ian Cauble served it to me blind I initially thought it was Puligny-Montrachet. It is very ‘Burgundian,’ as one would expect from Parr. But what I think he’s most proud of is how ‘Santa Rita Hills-ian’ it is. Regardless of where it’s from, it’s one of the best Chardonnays I’ve had in recent memory—I’m certain you will agree.