The 2020 Chardonnay Stone Flat Vineyard is pure and layered with scents of candied peaches, dried herbs, lime candy and jasmine. It continues to offer new aromas with each return to the glass. The palate is powerful and satiny, its concentration balanced by tangy acidity, and it finishes with lots of flinty nuances. It feels youthfully tense compared to some of the other Kistler Chardonnays this vintage.

The 2019 Chardonnay Stone Flat Vineyard offers pure aromas of Meyer lemons, green herbs and savory beeswax, with wafts of candle smoke and graphite. The palate is plush and satiny with integrated freshness that supports lush, ripe fruits. A haunting texture carries the finish on and on. Wow!

The 2018 Chardonnay Stone Flat Vineyard is delicate on the nose, slowly revealing singular scents of lemon blossoms, white peaches, oyster shell and fresh herbs with a honey-nut undercurrent. The palate is equally delineated and pure but concentrated, offering flinty, citrus-laced fruits with an energetic acidic spine and long, minerally finish.

The 2018 Chardonnay Stone Flat Vineyard comes from a site just 30 feet from the Durell Vineyard, yet this cuvée emerges all from the 420a rootstock, which has less potassium uptake and generally yields a lower pH, slightly more acidic wine. This 2018 offers a more perfumed, pretty bouquet of lemon zest, honeysuckle, white flowers, and a terrific sense of minerality. Playing in the more medium-bodied end of the spectrum, it has a great mid-palate, concentrated fruit, bright acidity, and a classy, lengthy finish. It's a stunner that's going to evolve for 10-15 years.

"The Stone Flat Chardonnay is planted on the same soil as Durell—they are separated by a few feet—and picked at the same time," says winemaker Jason Kesner. "They're fermented in the same room and with the same barrel program, so the only difference between these two wines is the rootstock." The 2017 Chardonnay Stone Flat Vineyard has an uber-inviting nose with scents of honeycomb, peach cobbler, toasted hazelnut, quince, guava and a classy framing of baking spice with underlying mineral notions. It's medium-bodied with intense, savory-laced ripe fruits knit by rocky notions and tangy acidity, finishing long and layered.