Great Wine: Prescription Chardonnay

Price Range: $18–20

Region: Clarksburg, California

Ridiculously and amazingly rich, the brand new PRESCRIPTION Chardonnay is virtually a slap-in-the-face to moderation and modesty. This is no ordinary Chard.

Unchilled, put your nose to the rim, and what you get is a decadent whirl of apricot preserves, honey, ripe peach, yellow flowers and a hint of ginger. For fans of the Bordeaux dessert wine Sauternes, it’s a familiar bouquet. The wine’s color is a deep honey yellow—much more substantial in color saturation than your everyday Chardonnay. Served chilled, as most people would have it, the wine takes on a more floral, citrusy and feminine character.

Alcohol level is 14.8% and counting, and the wine’s extreme viscosity lives up to the data. Texture is creamy, luscious… bold, intense flavor covers the palate alongside broad tannins and a prominent note of minerality. Really, this is just shy of a late-harvest wine when it comes to how luminously ripe the fruit is and just how full-bodied this is for a Chardonnay. The wine finishes long and lingering, on a note of delectable, golden fruit. Just begging for a pairing with halibut, sea bass or shellfish—but hold the butter! Or just sip it on its own to oblivion.

At an SRP of $19, who’s responsible for this madness? And would you believe this kind of wine is 100% steel-fermented (with oak treatment)? Winemaker Robert Lloyd is formerly of La Crema and Rombauer, and the grower is James Reamer, whose vineyard lies along California’s Sacramento River Delta, classified under the Clarksburg AVA—don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it, or if you never even knew they made wine in Sacramento County.

The wine is an Rx for extraordinarily priced decadence. One is unlikely to find Chardonnay like this on the market at this price, and it just might be the work of insane and insatiable genius.

2015 is the very first vintage for Prescription, so it can only be found on a limited basis right now. Give it a few more years, and it’ll be everywhere. Something like this doesn’t stay quiet for long. –J.M.