2019 Grgich Hills Estate Chardonnay Blue Beret Estate Grown Napa Valley 750 ml

Grgich Hills’ Blue Beret Chard might be the ultimate “locals only” wine.

Originally crafted exclusively for the Grgich wine club—and drawn from a higher proportion of the blocks that go into Grgich’s $100 Paris Tasting Commemorative Chardonnay—it was a way to give their most devoted fans an upgrade in texture and luxury over their standard-bearing Napa Chardonnay without an increased price-tag. 

If you knew who to ask, you could buy a few bottles from their tasting room, and it was always one of our must-buys if we were ever in the neighborhood. But it hasn’t been officially available through any non-winery channels—until we got it. 

Mike Grgich—whose signature headpiece inspired the name “Blue Beret”—is the man who crafted the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay that took home the top prize at the 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting. A protége of André Tchelistcheff and Robert Mondavi, his performance in Paris made him a wine-world superstar. 

The year after he bested the Burgundies, he founded Grgich Hills, and the winery’s first vintage of Chardonnay beat 221 others in a blind tasting known as “The Great Chicago Chardonnay Showdown.” That victory earned him the sobriquet “King of Chardonnay,” and Grgich Hills soared to the top of the list of California’s marquee bottles. 

Grgich hills is an outlier in that it’s still family-fun. The wines are now crafted by Mike Grgich’s nephew, Ivo Jeramaz, who relies on native yeast for fermentation and ages the wine for eight months in 50% new French oak barrels. The Chardonnay undergoes no malolactic fermentation, which is why it has a distinct acidic verve that recalls the energy of great white Burgundy.