It’s become fashionable in recent years to praise lean, laser-focused California Chardonnay — some would say “Chablis-style” Chardonnay — as a rebuke to the overblown butter-and-oak bombs that proliferated beginning in the 1990s.
But that line of thinking neglects to account for the full-bodied California Chardonnays that are made well — expertly, even. When a winemaker gets it right, there’s nothing like it. A rich Chardonnay can be as luscious as uni melting on the tongue, as decadent as a smear of soft-ripened cheese, as satisfying as biting into a juicy, runny peach.
A new Sonoma County winery, Sphaerics, makes a convincing argument for this style. It produces Chardonnay exclusively, and all three of its single-vineyard wines are rich and complex, with a tense line of acidity that keeps them in balance. Now, three years in, Sphaerics will expand its small production thanks to the purchase of its own Sonoma Coast vineyard…