2018 LIOCO Chardonnay Sonoma County 750 ml

For 15 years, LIOCO has sourced the best fruit from Sonoma and the Russian River Valley, and today is making Chardonnays that put them in the realm of Littorai, Hanzell, and Patz & Hall. That quality is what has made LIOCO a favorite at Michelin-starred restaurants around the country, and a staple in our cellars too. 

Grown in a flawless vintage on vineyards whose grapes supply wines of twice the price, the 2018 Chardonnay displays exactly what has elevated LIOCO to a Wine & Spirits Top 100 winery and made their Sonoma County Chardonnay one of the top value California Chardonnays at Wine Access. With its bright straw-yellow hue and vibrant aromas of peach, white flowers and lemon, the palate boasts tons of fleshy stone fruit and lemon curd notes, with minerals, fennel powder, and chamomile adding in an extra level of nuance. This is your chance to drink like Michelin three-star diners do for a song. 

We’ve always enjoyed catching up with Matt Licklider from LIOCO, and now that they’re settled into their beautiful new tasting room on Healdsburg’s town square (just feet from the fatty brisket at nearby Kinsmoke), we find ourselves checking in more often than ever. The last time we did, there was only one thing Matt wanted to discuss over glasses of the golden 2018 Chardonnay: the once-in-a-career vintage that produced it.

“The 2018 vintage stole the show: It was remarkable from a lot of different standpoints: We had a very large crop and ideal flowering conditions. We had this incredibly even, boring, elongated growing season, so were able to pick every block exactly where we wanted it. We’d go in the vineyard in multiple tries, pick one section for acidic structure, get the rest of it for a little more flavor-forward profile.” 

That long and pressure-free picking window translated into a wine boasting brand new elements. The Chardonnay’s primary profile usually consists of citrus fruit and minerals, and 2018 added complexity in the form of stone fruit and white flower notes. 

One thing that didn’t change in 2018: the spectacular vineyards tapped by LIOCO, which has built its brand on seeking and sourcing from the most expressive sites in California. The 2018 hails from their Chardonnay standby sites Stuhlmuller and Teac Mor in Russian River, and the biodynamically farmed John Balletto estate. The Balletto site is so pristine that Matt’s crew had to pick notoriously chemical-averse tree frogs out of their Chardonnay bins. “When you’ve got frogs in your vineyard,” Matt explained, “that’s how you know you’re really walking the talk” in terms of fostering a perfect ecosystem. 

That vintage, those sites: They all added up to a wine of extraordinary flavor and what Matt calls “textbook chemistry,” meaning all the structural elements are in the right place. LIOCO is one of our top-selling California Chardonnays, and the 2018 delivers even more than we’re accustomed to, which makes it one of our top Chardonnay values, bar none.