Shafer Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay 2021

Cellar for up to 10 years. Serve chilled. After many long years of working in publishing in Chicago, John Shafer left behind his career in 1972 and moved to Napa Valley to follow his true passion of making wine. He made his first wine in 1978, and pretty soon his son Doug was also bitten by the winemaking bug, joining the new family business in 1983. Today Shafer is one of the few wineries still owned by the original founding family and with an experienced head winemaker, Elias Fernandez, who joined the winery back in 1984. Shafer is best known for its premium red wines crafted from the exceptional hillsides above the property in Stags Leap. They also produce excellent whites like this Chardonnay which comes from the Red Shoulder Ranch in the cooler Carneros region. The proximity to the Pacific Ocean helps to preserve plenty of mouthwatering freshness and aromatics, while the warm sunny days ensure the grapes achieve optimal ripeness. To create an opulent, creamy texture, 75% of the juice used for this Chardonnay is fermented and matured in oak barrels for 14 months. The remainder is vinified and aged in stainless steel. This helps create a rich, punchy Chardonnay that’s bursting with ripe apricot, peach and honeyed notes, a generous rich mouthfeel, and hints of toast and spice that linger on the tongue.