2021 Oceano Chardonnay Spanish Springs Vineyard San Luis Obispo Coast 750 ml

We never expected that we’d discover a new favorite Chardonnay at an Indian restaurant—but then again, New York City’s Junoon is hardly a typical Indian restaurant. Holder of a MICHELIN star for nearly a decade—and with “Best Of Award of Excellence” honors from Wine Spectator—Junoon’s cuisine and wine list have made it a must-stop for us when we’re in New York.

This past spring, we dropped in for a long lunch, entrusting our dishes to our server and dedicating our time to perusing their wine list. There, amid names like Kistler’s Les Noisetiers ($195) and Ramey’s Rochioli Vineyard Chardonnay ($240) was Oceano’s Spanish Springs Vineyard Chardonnay—for a mere $95. We had to order it.

We’ve been fans of Oceano’s Pinot Noirs for a few years, but have never had access to their Chards: Production is low, demand from top restaurants is high. So when the bottle arrived at our table, our expectations were high. 

The meal was good that day, but the wine was superb. We were on the phone with the winery before we hailed a cab—and thanks to our members’ enthusiasm for Oceano’s wines, we secured a small allocation at a fantastic discount.

Oceano co-owner Rachel Martin fell in love with the Spanish Springs Vineyard, located on the sandy eastern flanks of Price Canyon, on her first visit there, and she immediately began purchasing grapes. The vineyard’s proximity to the ocean and the mix of hillsides and exposures guarantee the kind of complexity for which buyers pay top dollar—it’s an ideal climate for growing Chardonnay.

All that cold salt air and mineral-rich soil imbue this bottle with saline finesse, while the long growing season leaves the wine elegantly textured, juicy as a fresh-picked peach, and delicately perfumed. It’s the kind of stuff that simply melts on your tongue.

The extended, cool growing season of 2021 allowed for one of the region’s latest harvests in recent memory, resulting in grapes with slowly accumulated sugars and bright, beautifully preserved acids. To capture all this natural beauty, Martin held nothing back in the cellar, barrel-fermenting this Chardonnay and aging it for nine months in French oak barrels from top coopers like Francois Frères, Billon, and Taransaud.