Having toured Stagecoach vineyard with Pahlmeyer winemaker Katie Vogt and talked at length about her strict focus on expressing site, I couldn't stop thinking about the Chardonnay wines I'd sampled. Near the end of the year, I got my hands on the 2022 release of this iconic label's Chardonnay, and it's the kind of structured, powerful, intensely flavourful Chardonnay that you'd want to stockpile in the cellar. It conveys a duality of power and restraint. Knockout aromas of white peach, pineapple, and salted lemon peel, coconut, and wet stone. Full and rich with an extraordinary depth of sweet, creamy fruit that inundates the palate, suspended by an equally penetrating core of saline minerality infused with a luxurious finish of almond pastry notes, dried apricots, and white flowers. One of the most memorable young Chardonnays I tasted all year. Aged in 100% new Francois Ferrer heavy toast oak barrels. Number four of my top 10 wines of 2023. (JC)

The 2022 Chardonnay is dense and powerful. In that sense, it is perhaps a bit more typical than the 2023 tasted alongside it. Dried pear, apricot, chamomile, marzipan, tangerine oil, flowers and light tropical accents all build in the glass. This is the only Chardonnay from Pahlmeyer in 2022, and it is terrific. (AG)

Both richly flavored and mouthwatering, this Chardonnay offers a well balanced expression of a generous style. Juicy, ripe, yellow fruits and sweet pear are pleasantly spiced, carried through a long finish by brightening acidity. Delicious. (ECB)