2019 Kistler Vineyards Les Noisetiers Chardonnay Sonoma Coast 750 ml

Kistler has set California’s Chardonnay bar for four decades, and our members have been clamoring for their rich, golden wines ever since the earliest Wine Access emails went out. So it’s no surprise that our first-ever Kistler Chardonnay offer sold out immediately—and that every review that has rolled in has been five stars.  

Today, we’re honored to announce the 2019 Kistler Les Noisetiers Chardonnay Sonoma Coast, the new vintage of a benchmark bottle that’s normally claimed by Michelin-starred restaurants and five-star hotels across the country. We’ve got an allocation for Wine Access members, coming straight from the Kistler cellars.

Opening and enjoying a bottle of Kistler is an elegant experience, from the moment you bring the immediately recognizable bottle—with its label that recalls the Grands Crus of the Côte de Beaune—to the table. Pouring a rich gold color in the glass, it overflows with a bounty of aromas, led by acacia, lemon peel, and roasted hazelnuts. It’s grand and powerful on the palate, marked by citrus and stone fruit, with a generous body and lengthy finish, all structured by a fine frame of mouthwatering acid. 

This is California’s quintessential Chardonnay experience, a wine whose quality and demand never wane, and we’re honored to offer our share to you. 

Ever since Steve Kistler and the late Mark Bixler founded the winery in 1978, Kistler has been different. While many wineries select multiple grape clones like they do yeast strains or barrels, Kistler works with just one clone of Chardonnay. The Kistler clone originally hails from Burgundy, but has been in California long enough to be considered a California heritage clone. The winery has refined it over the years, propagating vines of low yields, great concentration, and brisk natural acidity—in other words, those that produce gorgeous site-transparent wines.

This expression of place is crucial, since Kistler works with many of the top sites and growers in Sonoma County—and they do it extremely closely, planting their own vines and farming the site themselves. And when they’re in with a vineyard, they’re really in for the long haul: Their most recent grower relationship began in the mid-1990s. 

Kistler’s continuity depends on bonds like that, and for reasons that go beyond grape growing. Winemaker Jason Kesner first worked with Steve Kistler when Jason was running Hudson Ranch and Vineyards in Carneros, growing Kistler’s grapes at the famed site. Eight years later, Steve asked Jason to join him in the cellar, and after a long Old World-style apprenticeship, Jason was named Winemaker—and when Steve retired at the end of 2017, President. It was a seamless transition that will keep Kistler on the same singular track for the next four decades.  

Nothing can express Kistler’s style and continuity better than Les Noisetiers. Sourced from the Dutton, Vine Hill, Laguna Ridge, and Trenton Roadhouse sites, the 2019 showcases Sonoma County’s trademark Goldridge Soils, with key variations in the amount and fineness of sand in the soil.

The grape clusters that Kistler works with are stunningly small—only about five times the size of a cork—and after being harvested in the cool of night (when it’s at its freshest and brightest), the Chardonnay is barrel-fermented in François Frères barrels that were themselves three-plus years in the making. The result is one of the purest, most precise examples of California Chardonnay available—one that is normally swirled and sipped in the finest dining rooms across the country.

Today, we’re happy to bring this iconic bottling to your table, straight from the Kistler cellars.