Marbeso - 'Rancho Arroyo Grande' - Chardonnay - SLO Coast, CA - 2024
Regular price $45.90
Unit price per
Notes from the Winery/Importer
Linear and fresh. Barrel fermented, aged on lees 11 months.
Notes on the Producer
South Bay Natives, Colin and Hannah are a small production in the Sta Rita Hills producing vineyard designates from Santa Barbara County and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Combining our passion of wine together my wife and I decided to launch our own label Marbeso (kiss of the sea) in 2019 after years of making wine for other people. This year will mark Colin’s 20th vintage as a whole, ranging from Leeuwin Estate in Margaret River to Martinborough Vineyards in the North Island of NZ. We source wines in close proximity to the sea and strive to produce clean, acid driven wines of minimal intervention using natural yeasts and bacteria; neutral french oak, bottle unfined and unfiltered to promote transparency between glass and vineyard. With vineyard sourcing and farming at the forefront, we have a strong connection to finding fruit that has been organically grown.
Grapes & Style
Chardonnay
Chardonnay is one of the great white grapes of Burgundy, and one of the most widely planted wine grapes in the world. It has a long history in eastern France, especially Burgundy and Champagne, and DNA work shows it as part of the same broad Pinot and Gouais Blanc family that gave us grapes like Gamay and Aligoté. It’s adaptable, easy enough to grow in many places, and capable of producing everything from simple everyday whites to some of the most ageworthy white wines in the world.
In the vineyard, Chardonnay buds and ripens relatively early, which makes it useful in cooler climates but vulnerable to spring frost. It tends to do especially well on limestone and calcareous clay, and its relatively neutral fruit profile gives site and cellar choices a lot of room to show. Malolactic fermentation, lees aging, barrel fermentation, and oak can all shape the final wine dramatically.
In the glass, Chardonnay can be lean, saline, and citrus-driven, or broad, textured, and orchard-fruited, depending on where it’s grown and how it’s made. Chablis shows the steely, high-acid side; the Côte de Beaune shows depth, texture, and savory complexity; Champagne shows its value as a sparkling-wine base. Good Chardonnay is less about one fixed flavor than about balance, texture, and the way it carries place.