Mount Eden is one of California’s longest continuously-producing wineries, with a heritage going back to Martin Ray’s 1945 plantings in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This Chardonnay is the exception in their lineup sourced fruit, not estate. It comes from the Wolff Vineyard in Edna Valley, the oldest Chardonnay planting in that AVA (1976) and one Mount Eden has worked with since 1985. The fruit is trucked back to the Santa Cruz winery and made exactly like the estate wine: pressed whole-cluster, fully barrel-fermented, malolactic complete, aged on lees. The result is an Edna Valley Chardonnay with the structural seriousness of a Mount Eden bottle but at a friendlier price.