Paul Hobbs, Crossbarn Chardonnay, Napa, 2021

A scintillating Chardonnay from a one of its favourite growing regions, this is a bright refreshing and engaging Chardonnay that truly represents the Sonoma region from where it comes.

Made with no oak ageing or barrel fermentation at all, this is as pure an American Chardonnay as you'll ever find. Complex and lively with flavours of green apples, blossom and lemon meringue, the racy acidity provides a long and mouth-coating finish. How?! Because of the lees-ageing and 100% Malo-lactic fermentation, increasing texture, body and flavour.

This is a very, very fine wine, akin to a Chablis Grand Cru but without the oak and with more sunshine... plus it doen't come from one vineyard, but a selection of the best Chardonnay sites across the Sonoma Coast. So it's not like Chablis Grand Cru at all, really; but there is a qualitative similarity of palate weight and complexity that celebrates fruit flavour and terroir above winemaking interference.

Paul Hobbs is big into hands-off winemaking, which seems counter-intuitive for a man who has such a phenomenal reputation as a brilliant winemaker. This wine is made from whole-bunches of night-time-harvested hand-picked grapes, and is bottled unfiltered and unfined and uses almost zero So2. And the winery is certified sustainable.

Paul Hobbs' wines always tell a story that communicates place, terroir and variety. Raised in a tee-total farmstead on the East Coast of the USA, ending up in California as a superstar winemaker didn't seem on the cards. Indeed, he studied medicine before taking the path of wine studies in UC Davis. A scientific approach to all matters wine-related may be accurate, but it leaves out the sense of charm and warmth so associated with his wines that seems far more artistic than scientific. Certainly his decisions are carefully made and planned to bring precision and clarity to the wines, but that alone doesn't bring numerous 100-point ratings: he has great charisma and passion for winemaking, taking him to numerous international projects in countries including France and Argentina. Wines made in his wineries are always noteworthy, but it is the Californian range that have so much built his reputation. Monumental and structured, typical of the region and style, his wines interestingly do not just copy the neighbours or blindly follow set standards: his winemaking is exceptionally rooted in the vineyards that he farms and his wines (though pretty intense, for sure) always have a vibrancy and freshness from his respect to the soil. It's like organics and biodynamism, but more pragmatic; and in the winery, it's like a natural wine approach, but more sensible and certainly not bound to any one creed, other than what he believes is best for any one crop of fruit in any one vintage. In short, it's hard-graft vineyard management and hard-graft, low-intervention wine making. Completely brilliant.