2022 Tobias Vineyards Chardonnay Blue Oak Vineyard Mendocino 750 ml

Legendary Napa vintner Ric Forman made his name guiding some of the most famous wines in the valley—Sterling, Newton, and Duckhorn—into their golden ages. His own Forman wines, though, are a different deal, as close as you can get to a one-man show in this business. 

In fact, Ric’s been quoted as saying that, when he makes his own wines, no one touches them but he and his son, Toby.

Armed with the same artisan approach, Toby’s making stunning bottles like the 2022 Tobias Vineyards Chardonnay Blue Oak Vineyard Mendocino that tend to sell out as fast as we can keep them in stock.

Ric Forman, who came up through UC Davis at the same time as fellow icons like Justin Meyer and Nils Venge, will tell you that he favors a restrained style of wine that has more in common with old-school Bordeaux.

Toby, who has absorbed everything his father had to teach since he was a child, favors elegance as well—but channeled through a more recognizable California idiom. His wines are broader, shapely and expressive, but with a sculptural finesse that is a kind of family inheritance.

Toby and Dawn head 90 miles north of Napa, to Dawn’s family’s Blue Oaks Vineyard in the Potter Valley sub-AVA of Mendocino. Their vines enjoy the massive diurnal temperature swing that makes Potter Valley an ideal source of Chardonnay.

With careful attention paid to each lot, all farming and winemaking decisions are the family’s own. In a wine like this, quality is jealously guarded—making our deal at all the more remarkable.