2020 Rivers-Marie Joy Road Vineyard Chardonnay 20RMJRCH75

Joy Road feels like it is becoming more and more consistent every year.  It’s been hard to pin down the vineyard signature over the 7 or so years we have sourced fruit from this tiny parcel west of Occidental.  In 2020, it is pretty exuberant reflecting the overarching vintage characteristic.  All the fruit notes here lean to tropical but with bracing acidity to give the wine balance and present the wine more as exotic than overblown.  This, like the Sonoma Coast, is very open right now, unusual for Joy Road.  Maybe we finally picked this in its sweet spot, no doubt aided by the dueling factors of a warm year with a small crop and a site well situated to survive those vintage conditions.  The fruit profile contains guava, ripe peaches, tangerine, salted pineapple but all buffered by a lemon zest/brulee undercurrent that helps to pull out and prolong the finish.  There’s also a nice textural component on the finish that provides just enough scratchiness to add complexity.  With only 4 barrels produced, we didn’t have a lot of options for new oak so we went with one new Louis Latour barrel that also helps with the citrus/mineral side of Chardonnay’s expression.