2024 Wayfarer Chardonnay
'The Estate'

Tasting Notes

With lemon curd, lime zest, and ocean salinity, along with hints of hawthorn flower and yellow peach, the 2024 Wayfarer Chardonnay ‘The Estate’ is intensely aromatic.  Mouthwatering tangerine and grapefruit flavors flow into a dense wet stone minerality.  The wine is juicy on the entry and broad on the palate before coming together in a taut, lingering finish.  The warm 2024 vintage is revealed in this Chardonnay’s open, giving nature, while its profile remains precise and fresh.  

Winemaking Notes

The clusters were harvested by hand in the cool pre-dawn hours, hand-sorted, and gently pressed upon arrival at the winery.  The juice settled for 24 hours before racking into 228L French oak barrels, 58% new. Native yeast slowly guided alcoholic fermentation in barrel, with periodic batonnage through malolactic fermentation. The wine aged sur lie for 15 months and was bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Vintage Notes

The 2024 Wayfarer wines are the product of an even, warm vintage that brought all components into balance, yielding great complexity, texture and depth.  Rainfall was moderate throughout the cool winter months and into early spring, replenishing the vines without saturating the soil.  Bloom occurred on schedule in late May, and warm weather continued throughout June and July, leading to even veraison during the first week of August.  Harvest was also right on schedule, lasting from September 5th to the 30th.  While peak temperatures throughout the growing season were above average, nighttime temperatures dipped lower than usual – the greatest diurnal shift on record at Wayfarer.  This pronounced daily temperature swing developed intense flavors, bringing great character and structure to the wines, while maintaining a vibrant core of acidity.  The vintage also brought more coastal wind than usual, which thickened the grape skins and focused the vines’ energy on berry development, deepening the nuance and density of the wines.  Open and generous now, the 2024s will age gracefully over the next ten years.   

Blocks

Clones

Berlenbach Old Wente, Hyde, Mount Eden