2025 Martellotto 'Sospiro' Chardonnay Santa Rita Hills

There's a moment every afternoon in the Sta. Rita Hills when the Pacific wind shows up uninvited. It rolls in cold, off schedule, and it doesn't care what the fruit was doing an hour ago. Sourced from the organically certified Spear Vineyard, this Chardonnay ends up with a kind of clarity you can't get anywhere warmer, no matter how good the winemaker is.

Greg Martellotto built Sospiro around that wind.

It opens with an invitation and enticement — think fresh Parisian croissants, elegant and wistful, not heavy or overdone - the way a great Chardonnay should. But it doesn't sit there. The acidity cuts back in fast, and what's left is a wine that's mouth watering without being heavy, layered without being loud. Twelve months in French oak, just 20% new, enough to frame the fruit, never enough to overwhelm it.

Sospiro means "sigh" in Italian. Not the dramatic kind — the quiet one. The exhale when something's better than you expected and you weren't ready for it.

Only 350 cases exist. Most of the wine world will never taste this one.

Greg Martellotto's path here wasn't quick. His family's winemaking roots run through generations of Italian tradition, and he didn't just inherit that — he spent twenty years testing it, refining it, and turning it loose on California fruit few people would've trusted with it. 2025 marks Martellotto Winery's 20th vintage. Along the way, Greg became a certified Italian Wine Ambassador, a title held by only 450 people worldwide.

The wines stayed quiet on purpose. Production across the portfolio sits under 8,000 cases a year, and for two decades those bottles have picked up 90+ scores and double gold medals in blind tastings most people never hear about.

In October 2021, Forbes named Santa Barbara County the most exciting wine destination in the US. The same day, critic Antonio Galloni called the region still largely undiscovered, and significantly undervalued against its global peers. Sospiro is proof of what that undervaluation actually tastes like — world-class Chardonnay from a region most people haven't caught onto yet.