2014 Babcock Vineyards Chardonnay Sta. Rita Hills 750 ml

A Beautiful 2014 Harvest and Bryan Babcock’s “Baby Cream” Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay

We first met Bryan Babcock in the early 1980s, after tasting an Au Bon Climat Babcock Vineyards Chardonnay that would prove to be one of the more unforgettable whites of its time. We spent two hours with young Babcock, traipsing the vineyard set on light sandy soils outside of Lompoc that would so mesmerize the likes of Jim Clendenen and Adam Tolmach. The skies were turquoise blue, yet the mercury barely touched 75 degrees. Bryan explained the topography of the hills, how the mountains run east-west instead of north-south and usher the cool air off the Pacific through the canyon.

The growing seasons on Babcock’s Sta. Rita Hills are almost impossibly long, with harvest often delayed until late October. Yields are tiny, berries small and sweet, and clusters often strewn with Burgundian millerandages. Babcock Vineyards Chardonnays are often ageless, impervious to oxidation. Even after up to 18 months in French wood, the wines remained tightly wound, almost Riesling-like out of the gate, ready for a two-decade run for the roses.

2014 is a vintage that may never be forgotten on the coast. Cognizant of the stunning crop to come, Bryan’s gears began to turn in mid-summer. The call to harvest came quickly in late August; yields were beautiful and bountiful. Over tacos at La Super-Rica Taqueria in Santa Barbara, Bryan told us, “As always, the ‘Top Cream’ fruit was our first prerogative and it was mind-boggling. So much so that we decided that instead of making a ‘Santa Barbara County’ Chardonnay, we’d take the same primary fruit from the estate vineyard and produce another 100% Santa Rita Hills Chardonnay. The result? Rip-roaring fruit and a mouthwatering finish that goes on forever.” He calls it “Baby Cream.”

Two months before bottling, Babcock conducted exhaustive blending sessions. To preserve the lush purity and minerality of the Sta. Rita Hills fruit, he chose fermentation in stainless steel at a nice cool temperature. Then he borrowed from the Burgundian recipe with just a little malolactic fermentation in order to balance the fruit’s natural acidity with richness.

The 2014 Babcock Chardonnay Sta. Rita Hills is delicious. Brilliant light-gold to the rim with piercing, saline-tinged aromas of honeysuckle, ripe apple, and pear. Rich, broad, and mouth-filling on the attack, with marvelous high-toned-density, focus, and weight. Fine layers of apple, pear, and honey slowly peel away after a couple hours in the glass. Drink now-2021.

$32 on release. Just $24.99 today — as good as mineral Chardonnay ever gets under $25. Shipping included on 6.