Dunnuck: “Beautifully balanced Chardonnay”
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2022 Presqu'ile Winery Chardonnay Santa Barbara County 750 ml
| $24 | per bottle | |
- Curated by unrivaled experts
- Choose your delivery date
- Temperature controlled shipping options
- Get credited back if a wine fails to impress
Santa Barbara’s Chardonnay Excellence
Few California regions are as tailor-made for perfectly balanced Chardonnay as Santa Barbara County. And Presqu’ile hit that balance dead on with their 2022 Santa Barbara bottling.
The wine’s ripe fruit and Pacific-driven minerality share the stage without fighting for the spotlight. It’s a push-pull of viscosity and zest, with notes of Gala apples and yellow pear enveloping vanilla and herbs. Jeb Dunnuck called it a “beautifully balanced Chardonnay with tons to love,” and said “it has terrific purity and I'd be thrilled to drink a bottle.”
This is incredibly drinkable Chardonnay, and that’s good—because you’ll want more than one glass to tease out the intricacies. You can thank Santa Barbara’s “refrigerated sunlight” for that. The region’s breezy hills get 283 sunny days per year, concentrating the grapes’ fruit flavors. But that sun doesn’t come with oppressive heat. Instead, the Pacific’s significant cooling influence keeps acidity and saline minerality alive, making for complex and well-structured Chardonnay.
In 2007, Presqu’ile’s founders, the Murphy family, settled in the Santa Maria Valley after a West Coast-spanning search for the ideal cool-climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay terroir. Since then, they’ve built a lineup of food-friendly wines that have earned them a die-hard base of longtime fans.
“The wines seem so humble, unassuming, and easy to drink initially,” says Wine Access Unfiltered host Amanda McCrossin. “But upon further inspection, they are incredibly layered and nuanced gems.”
Antonio Galloni recently said their appellation wines “deliver outstanding quality and value.” He went on, “I would be happy to drink them any day of the week.” Our introduction to this Chardonnay at the winery—beside one of the most delicious mezze boards we’ve eaten—had us saying the same thing.