February 2000

Young, with apple, peach and anise notes. Tight, elegant, remarkably fresh and lively, it's steely and clean. Has great balance and intensity. Stony Hill's Chards are among the longest-lived in the state, and this very fine wine from a great vintage should improve for years, possibly decades.

 
            February 16, 2000

   Stony Hill Chardonnay, from the slopes of Spring Mountain above St. Helena, is one of the Napa Valley's most venerable wines. The first vintage was 1950. It has never conformed to the established California style of pedal-to-the-oak Chardonnay. Rather, it is typically a crisp, lean, concentrated wine that ages beautifully for 10 years or more.
    At its best (and '97 is a good example) Stony Hill Chardonnay seems like a mouthfull of golden light that glows long after the actual liquid slips down one's throat.

                                    - Rod Smith

The Beverage Testing Institute    

Points - Exceptional

          March 16 , 2000

     ...a textbook example of great Chardonnay. Lean, fresh grapefruit and dried fig aroma with a crisp, tightly knit center. Slightly flinty. Ideal now, but certain to age nicely. I have bottles from 20 years ago that are still in great shape. This is wine maker Mike Chelini's 25th Chardonnay and as with all the others it demands time.
                                    - Dan Berger