2023 Sheepish Chardonnay Firetree Vineyards Carneros Napa 750 ml

There might not be a winemaker in Napa Valley with better vineyard knowledge than Benjamin Leachman.

A crack winemaker—and top vineyard manager—with decades of experience, he’s spent the last ten years of his career farming some of the finest sites in Napa Valley. Ben works for some iconic clients, and this has given him an unrivaled overview of the great vineyards in the valley—not to mention a backdoor into spectacular opportunities. 

That’s exactly what he saw in the Firetree Vineyard in Carneros. 

In Carneros, Napa Valley’s hotbed for Chardonnay, Firetree Vineyard sits right in the sweet spot, north of Highway 12. Firetree has a long history of producing great Chardonnay. Originally planted in the 1880s by Giuseppe Sciligo, it was used for years by Silverado for their single-vineyard Firetree Chardonnay. The Jimenez family, who bought the site in 2021, are bringing it to its potential. Ben, as their vineyard manager, is a key part of that.  

The vineyard sits near the northern boundary of Carneros, where the hills become higher and steeper than down near San Pablo Bay. The climate is therefore a bit sunnier than at the water’s edge, but that warmth is balanced by the cool wind and fog coming off the bay. The Chardonnay vines are planted in loamy soils rich in sandstone and shale. 

When the Jimenez clan bought the plot, Ben had been farming it for over five years. He’d made his first vintage of Sheepish Chardonnay off the plot in 2019. The clan loved what Ben was doing in the vines, he was able to keep his favored status, procuring prime grapes from the site for his own project. 

Ben noted the vineyard’s strong personality when he started making wine there, and he sticks to a very deliberate regimen to take the wine where he wants it to go. “The name of the game is balance," he told us as we clinked glasses on a sunny, cool Carnenos day that summed up why the area is Chardonnay heaven. Ben has a crystal-clear vision of what he wants out of Chardonnay, and he executed it flawlessly here, displaying bright fruit, acidity, oak, and viscosity in perfect balance. He makes just 100 cases of this wine—that’s just four barrels!