Racines Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay Wenzlau Vineyard 2020 Lettie Teague WSJ On Wine back when nearly every other

back when nearly every other American brewery was pointed squarely at hops

is Cascahuín in its most authentic form

in a mint julep or an old fashioned

where marginal ripening creates wines of freshness and lift rather than heft

Racines Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay Wenzlau Vineyard 2020 Lettie Teague WSJ On Wine back when nearly every otherWenzlau sits on a dramatic limestone rich hillside above the Santa Ynez River, and it's one of the sites that convinced the Racines team Burgundy's Etienne de Montille and Brian Sieve, with Champagne's Rodolphe Peters to put down roots in California at all. The chalky soils here do something specific to Chardonnay: they give it lift and tension rather than weight. Fermented with native yeasts in large French oak puncheons with only a modest fraction