Arnot-Roberts Watson Ranch 2023

Arnot-Roberts, the Northern California winery founded by Duncan Arnot Meyers and Nathan Lee Roberts, is built on old world restraint and unusual sites. This Chardonnay comes from Watson Ranch in Napa Valley, where the vines were planted in 1993 on clay-limestone soils threaded with marine fossils, a rare geology for Napa that lends the wine a chalky mineral character and lively acidity. Picking early and working with cooler pockets keeps the alcohol at 12.5 percent, well below the regional norm, and preserves the wine's freshness. Ageing runs ten months in used French oak, used for texture and a measured oxygen exchange rather than wood flavour, so the fruit and mineral drive stay clear. The colour is pale green gold. The nose is fresh and restrained, with lemon, green apple and pear over a subtle bready lees note and a chalky, flinty lift. The palate is lean and precise, the citrus and orchard fruit framed by firm acidity and a long, saline, mineral finish that reflects the limestone soil. Serve at around 10 to 12 degrees in a white glass.