Your cart is currently empty!
Back in 1969, George Besson, Sr. planted this Chardonnay on the site of an abandoned old plum orchard in Hecker Pass at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Farmed for the past 56 years by George and his son George Jr., the fruit had gone to Josh Jensen and Calera for decades until 2024. Lying a few hundred feet above sea level on decomposed granite and clay soils, these old vines provide the stone-fruited core to our first vintage of St. Georges Chardonnay.
A few barrels of Chardonnay sourced from other exceptional sites, planted on quite different soils at higher elevations add cut, vivacity, and dimension. To wit: Coastview, planted 2200’ high up on on limestone and granite is an extremely exposed, cool site in the Gabilan Mountains, and lends laser-like attack, and lifted, cool-climate zesty aromatics to this bottling.
Peter Martin Ray, planted on fractured Franciscan shale in the early 1980s, and farmed without irrigation 1600‘ up atop Mount Eden on the Saratoga side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, provides additional length, depth, and an exquisite lemon oil-tinged opulence to the finish. With the help of an expert crew-- and a couple of real turkeys-- we picked, pressed, settled overnight, racked off the heavy solids, and fermented each lot native in a mix of mostly stainless and a few old barriques before barreling down for the winter. The wine completed malolactic naturally in the Spring, and we racked it just once when assembling all the components for bottling in June 2025.
- Birichino
Vibes with:
- Cocktail hour at a beach wedding
- Bonfires
- A bouquet of daisies.
Related products
-
Viognier 2024
$45.00
-
Chenin Blanc 'Echalier' 2023
$51.00
