Napa Chardonnay you can actually drink on a Tuesday

The winery ticket is $25. Wine-Searcher U.S. listings sit from $20.31 to $28.44. You pay $14. Randy Mason has been making Napa wine since the 1970s and put his name on the label in 1993. Elaine Chukan Brown at Wine Enthusiast gave the 2022 91 points and pointed it at fresh seafood and rich risotto. That is the buy.

Wine Enthusiast 91 on this vintage

Elaine Chukan Brown: racy and bright, a uniquely nervy Chardonnay built for fresh seafood as much as rich risottos. White grapefruit pith, white peach, and a sprinkle of sea salt. That is a named critic on the 2022, not a Wine-Searcher aggregate.

Pear, honey, pineapple. Then cream and oak.

The winery tasting note opens with pear, honey, and pineapple. The palate is round and creamy, oak integrated with the fruit, vanilla through a long finish. Alcohol 14.19 percent. pH 3.49. Acid 0.54 g/100 mL.

Two southern Napa vineyards. Barrel and steel.

Fruit comes from two sustainably farmed sites at the southern end of Napa Valley: morning fog, warm afternoon sun, and evening air off San Pablo Bay. Both lots were hand harvested at night. Vista Montone, the estate vineyard planted in 1999, is 64 percent of the blend, Dijon Clone 95 and Cabral on clay loam. Suscol Creek, planted 1999 to Dijon Clone 76 on thick rocky soils at the southern edge of the Sonoma Volcanic series, is the rest.

Eighty-six percent was barrel fermented and went through malolactic, then aged on the lees six months. Fourteen percent fermented in stainless with no malolactic, lees stirred twice a week for six months, the house move on Mason whites. The blend is those two pieces, set for classic Napa fruit.

Randy and Megan. Oakville, 1993.

Randy Mason is a UC Davis fermentation science graduate. He managed vineyards at Chappellet, then spent fourteen years as head winemaker at Lakespring. In 1993 he and Megan launched Mason Cellars in Oakville and helped stand up Napa Wine Company as a custom crush. His first Mason Sauvignon Blanc, 1996, made the house famous as a Napa white-wine specialist. This bottle is the Chardonnay from that same hand.

They source from growers they have known for years. Randy's line is minimalist winemaking so the site shows. They make the wines to be shared, from a sunlit afternoon to a quiet night at home.

Scallops with lemon. Risotto with mushrooms.

Wine Enthusiast already called the food: fresh seafood and rich risotto. Sea salt in the note wants a hard sear. The cream in the glass wants rice and browned mushrooms.