2018 Milia 9 Chardonnay La Vaillance Sta. Rita Hills 750 ml

Today’s scintillating, heritage-site Chardonnay is typically bottled as a single-vineyard designate, shining with a cool-climate purity that regularly claims 95+ point scores. But in 2018, the team at Milia 9 scored it in a once-in-a-lifetime arrangement... and their first call was to us.

The result is one of the greatest Chardonnay deals in Wine Access history. The short conversation won us a small allocation of this rich, bright Sta. Rita Hills standout at an incredible discount, ONLY for Wine Access members. Buy this one like the winery’s going out of business—because that’s pretty close to the truth. 

The small print in the agreement precludes us from including the growers behind the Milia 9 Estate Chardonnay, but we’ve sold their wines under their own prestigious label in the past to sell-out acclaim from our members. This wine is primarily sourced from a historic site, tended with an astounding level of Chardonnay IQ developed at Au Bon Climat and Qupé. The guys who grew these grapes are buddies with the folks at Kosta Browne, and share in their rigorous dedication to attaining terroir transparency at any cost.

Wines from that elite strata don’t often trickle down into this price category. And if you aren’t buying through Wine Access, it’ll still cost you the full price. Milia 9 put these premium grapes through the high-octane script popularized by Brewer-Clifton and Ojai, resulting in a hay-hued beauty bursting with succulent orchard fruit and dusted in brown sugar.

Oak is perfectly integrated into a sumptuous, seamless package, filled with buttery warmth yet characterized by wonderful lift. For a few hours or less, the chance still stands to load up on the last vintage produced by a Sta. Rita Hills grower with few equals.

One of the first questions this Chardonnay raises is how it’s possible to meld such opulence and freshness in the same bottle. We had the same thought, and when we posed it to the winemaker, he replied by inviting us out to the site where the grapes were grown.

It’s a famous vineyard characterized by the very conditions that have made the Sta. Rita Hills a global sensation over the past ten years. Cold, fog, and marine influence all raise these grapes to world-class levels, earning comparisons to the great domaines of Burgundy and elevating producers like Melville and Au Bon Climat to the highest rank in California.

The day we visited, the winds were gusting with enough force to send poplar trees tilting as the trunks creaked and branches danced in the air. “Those strong breezes cause the pores of the vines' leaves to close up,” the winemaker told us while clamping his hat down on his head. “That means sugars are slower to develop, so the grapes can hang for extended periods without worrying about overripeness or juiced-up ABVs.”

Particularly in dry years, the berries are tiny and skins are thick. The grapes are very sweet, but sugars—like in Burgundy—are modest. As for acids, that's something no one worries about in this microclimate, where fridge-like coolness preserves vibrancy right up to harvest, and the moment you pull the cork.