2021 Metzker Family Estates 'Jill's Cuvee' Chardonnay Russian River Valley

The best bottle you ever opened, you likely opened too soon.

Almost everyone does. Others, they save the special bottle for an occasion that never quite arrives, and the night they finally pull the cork, the wine has already left the building.

Two directions. Same error: guessing.

Today you don't have to. I found an exquisite wine for you to drink in its prime.

Mike Metzker founded this label in 2014 without buying a single vineyard. The strategy was simpler than that: source from the best sites in Napa and Sonoma, and let winemaker John Martin work each one separately. Howell Mountain, Spring Mountain, the Sonoma Coast, the Russian River Valley.

Jill's Cuvée is what comes out the top of that process. It's a barrel select — the house tastes through the Chardonnay lots and pulls the finest ones instead of blending everything back together. The fruit is Old Wente clone from Lone Oak, with Black Knight in support.

Whole-cluster pressed, fermented in barrel, then 16 months in 88% new French oak. That is a lot of new wood for a Chardonnay, and you taste it. Fuji apple and toasty vanilla lead, apricot and nutmeg sit behind, and marzipan runs through the middle. At 14.5% it sits at the rich, textural end of Russian River Chardonnay. The citrus and mineral finish is what keeps it from tipping over.

Serve it at 50 degrees, not straight out of the fridge. Cold kills the brioche and flattens the finish.

This is a bottle for roast chicken, Dungeness crab, or a cream sauce you'd otherwise be embarrassed by. They made 115 cases. That's the whole story on availability.