Description
From Wayfarer Vineyard in Fort Ross-Seaview, the 2021 Wayfarer Chardonnay The Estate is a Sonoma County, California still white wine from the United States, made entirely from Chardonnay. The cuvée is drawn from blocks 2, 4, 6, 12, 17, 26b, 27, 28, and 29, with Berlenbach Old Wente, Dijon 95, Hyde, and Mount Eden selections. The estate traces to a former organic farm purchased in 1998 by Jayson Pahlmeyer after Helen Turley identified the site; Cleo Pahlmeyer founded Wayfarer in 2012, and Todd Kohn has led winemaking since 2017. The 30-acre vineyard sits on King Ridge at 1,100 feet, 4.05 miles from the Pacific, with Goldridge sandy loam over sandstone, multiple ridge slopes, coastal wind, and block-by-block farming of clone-specific parcels. Fruit was hand picked at night, hand sorted, whole-cluster pressed, settled, and racked to French oak, 64 percent new, for native-yeast fermentation, measured bâtonnage through malolactic completion, and 15 months sur lie before bottling without fining or filtration. The cuvée represents the estate blend within Wayfarer’s vineyard-focused Chardonnay program.