Maitre de Chai, Chardonnay 'Rorick' 2019 (750ml)

<<< This is a one-and-a-half-acre, cool-climate site with 65-year-old vines. They control the farming here and it is worked organically. (The Sauvignon Blanc from Herron is bonkers and hits retail shelves at about $20.) The Kierkegaard Chardonnay comes from the Stuhlmuller vineyard in the Alexander Valley; the site is also farmed organically. The Stampede vineyard, made famous by Morgan Twain Peterson and Chris Cottrell at Bedrock Wine Co., is full of own-rooted, dry-farmed Zinfandel planted in the 1940s. For MDC, the reference Zinfandels are Paul Draper’s finessed renditions from Ridge. Great wine is made from great vineyards, from great grapes – that’s so obvious and so overstated that it already feels trite. As Maître de Chai, “masters of the cellar,” Alex and Marty acknowledge the supremacy of the vineyard and their own rather limited role.