93 John Gilman - View from the Cellar

"Wells Guthrie’s 2011 chardonnay from the Brousseau Vineyard in the Chalone AVA is a lovely young wine, with a lovely purity and nascent complexity tied to superb inner tension on the palate. The bouquet is still quite young and unevolved, but offers up lovely notes of white peach, apple, a gentle touch of smokiness, a really lovely and complex base of soil tones, a touch of acacia blossoms, bee pollen and a whisper of new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and beautifully defined by its terroir, with a superb core of fruit, bright acids, lovely focus and balance and a very, very long, primary and oh, so promising finish. This is the best chardonnay to date I have had the pleasure of tasting from Wells Guthrie, and though it is a baby and really will demand three or four years of bottle age to really come into its own, this is a wine to seek out! 2016-2030+."