The 2015 Chardonnay Estate Grown is scented of white peaches, spiced apples and baking bread with hints of shaved almonds and allspice. Medium-bodied, fresh and expressive, it offers a good core of stone fruit and toasty flavors with a pleasantly oily texture and great length.

The 2014 Chardonnay Estate Grown has an attractive bouquet with linseed-tinged citrus fruit, yellow flowers and a touch of honeysuckle that unfurls nicely in the glass. The palate is fresh on the entry with crisp acidity, slightly nutty in style and just missing a little substance and tension towards the finish. Not bad, though I might be tempted to trade up to the single vineyard offerings.

The 2013 Chardonnay Estate Grown has an attractive bouquet with citrus fruit, dandelion, a touch of melted butter and white chocolate, quite complex in style. The palate is fresh on entry with a twist of sour lemon. I like the edginess here, quite tensile in the mouth with white chocolate and pralines towards the easy-going finish.

The 2012 Chardonnay Estate Grown comes from 62 percent Dijon clone planted in 1994 and 1999, with a block of Wente selection planted in 1977. Picked October 2-13, it is whole-cluster pressed and fermented in used puncheons, 228-liter and 3,000-liter foudre going through complete malolactic fermentation. It has a well-defined, focused and harmonious bouquet with citrus lemon, mandarin and light sea spray scents. The palate is fresh on the entry with well-judged acidity, harmonious in the mouth with dried honey and dried quince on the finish. This is a delightful, straight-down-the-line, delicious Chardonnay.

Also recommended, but no tasting note given. "They weren't that different, at least in terms of the season" maintained Mimi Casteel and cousin Ben Casteel in amusing tandem when I asked them to differentiate 2011 and 2010, "just the latest harvest on record, and then the next latest on record! And we haven't felt that there is a qualitative difference either. But we were picking in the 12th-13th of October range, with 2010 (whereas) we didn't start picking until the 25th in 2011 and didn't finish until the 11th of November. Our goal was to get 12% natural alcohol and enough extract that the more tannic parts of our vineyard weren-t going to be just tannic." And many Pinots in this 2011 collection got into bottle at or little over 12%, with distinctively delightful results. The fruit was all destemmed and the extractive regimen lightened. After not getting the results they had hoped for in those few 2010 lots to which tartaric acid had been added (out of concern that the wines would fall flat after such high malic converted to lactic), the Casteels performed no acidulation in equally high-malic 2011. "The changing of our barrel regime to lighter toasting, but more turn-over (hence also newness) and different tonneliers has been gradual, but is something we've really worked on" explains Ben Casteel. "When Mimi and I took over in 2005 we didn't want to change anything dramatically because you have an established track record" to consider. A new property, Ingram Lane, has recently been planted to enhance the future volume here, which is still suffering a bit from the loss of Seven Springs after that venerable neighboring site became part of Evening Land. (For more about Bethel Heights consult my Issue 202 introduction.) Tel. (503) 581-2262