2024 Ways of Wayfarer Chardonnay
Waters Ranch Vineyard

Tasting Notes

Expressive aromatics of ripe pineapple, orange peel, and cardamom intermix with notes of white peach and baking spice.  Beautifully balanced on the palate, there is a spine of brilliant acidity and a polished, round, voluminous mouthfeel.  This Chardonnay is rich without being heavy, expansive on the entry and mouthwatering on the finish.   

Winemaking Notes

The grapes were picked by hand in the cool pre-dawn hours, and the fruit was delivered to the winery before sunrise. We hand-sorted the clusters before transferring them into a bladder press. After gentle pressing, the juice settled for 24 hours before we carefully racked it into 228L French oak barrels, 60% new. Native yeast slowly guided alcoholic fermentation, with measured batonnage until malolactic fermentation was complete. The wine aged sur lie for 15 months and was bottled unfined and unfiltered. 

Vintage Notes

The 2024 vintage at Waters Ranch Vineyard in Napa Valley began with bountiful rain to fill the soil profile as shoots began to emerge.  While the spring and early summer months were mild, July brought heat that expedited berry development and veraison.  The California sunshine brought elevated temperatures through August, and harvest was earlier than normal on September 2nd.  However, the vineyard’s high elevation provided both cooler temperatures to maintain a vibrant spine of acidity in the fruit, and intense sunlight for flavor development.  The 2024s are very giving, with great depth and intensity.  

About Ways of Wayfarer
Ways of Wayfarer are wines that carry forward the past with a fresh vision.  The Waters Ranch Vineyard Chardonnay honors the first chapter of the Pahlmeyer legacy.  Planted in the late 1990s by Jayson Pahlmeyer with developer David Abreu, Waters Ranch is draped over the Vaca Mountain Range at 2,200 feet – one of the highest-elevation vineyards in Napa Valley.  To this day, the Pahlmeyer family has retained ownership of Waters Ranch, and Cleo Pahlmeyer is now introducing wines from their vineyard under the Ways of Wayfarer label.  These wines honor the history of the vineyard and the iconic wines that have come from it, reimagined through a new, modern lens.  Introduced with the 2023 Chardonnay, a Ways of Wayfarer 2024 Merlot and 2025 Red Blend will begin releasing in 2027.