2023 Alfaro "Trout Gulch Vineyard" Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay

The vintage’s long, cool growing season is on full display in the 2023 Chardonnay Trout Gulch Vineyard, picked over a week at the end of October. Stainless steel-fermented before being aged nine months in old wood, it combines the grapes from the beginning of the pick and grapes from mid-to-late pick. There’s so much acidity across the board, it’s just outstanding, super-linear, and citrus-heavy, with lasting highlights of lemon peel, grapefruit, and wet stone, light-bodied, complex, and tasting of the sea. Drink now through 2040.