The mountain bottling, from McCrea.

Kistler's Sonoma Mountain Chardonnay is the appellation wine, and the fruit is McCrea. The house has farmed that vineyard since the 1980s. The blocks up here sit on redder volcanic ground, with more organic material than the lighter soils the house farms elsewhere, and the wines from them come forward in fruit. If the fruit is already in balance when it leaves McCrea, what is left for the cellar to add?

The cellar's answer is restraint. Whole clusters are pressed gently. Native yeast ferments the juice in barrel. Malolactic fermentation runs its course. The lees are not stirred. Ten months in French oak, 38 percent of it new, then a rest in stainless steel before bottling. The wine goes out unfined and unfiltered.

Antonio Galloni, at Vinous, scored this 2024 a 94 and called it a hidden gem in the Kistler lineup. He tasted the more generous blocks at McCrea in the glass, and he set the drinking window to open in 2026. The bottle on this page is that appellation Chardonnay, at $90.

Red volcanic ground, and a classic year

McCrea has more than one soil under the same name. The Sonoma Mountain blocks are the redder volcanic ones. The house describes them as fruit-forward against the lighter, silica-based ground it farms in other places. The clone is the heritage Chardonnay selection Kistler has used since the mid-1980s. This is not the separate McCrea Vineyard designate. It is the Sonoma Mountain appellation bottling.

The house called 2024 a classic year. Budbreak arrived on the old calendar. Summer was warm. The heat pulses came when they were expected. Yields were thinned by hand. Harvest was warm and on time, and the fermentations ran smooth. What they wanted from a year like that was full flavor, structure, and lively acidity, with weight that never turns heavy.

The photograph is the work, not a claim that this row is the McCrea block. A hoe in the vine row is how this house still talks about itself: farmers first. The fruit for this bottle is the Sonoma Mountain fruit from McCrea.

Native yeast, then ten quiet months

The juice ferments in barrel on the house's own yeast, down in the cellar, and nobody stirs the lees to force a texture. Full malolactic fermentation is part of the elevage. The oak is French, bought as wood and air-dried before it is coopered, and 38 percent of the barrels are new. Ten months is the time on the 2024 sheet for this wine. After that the wine is racked to stainless steel and held about three months, then bottled unfined and unfiltered.

That is the whole intervention. No fining to polish it. No filter to tidy it. The structure Galloni tasted is the structure the vintage and the volcanic blocks already had. The barrel is there to frame it.

Six bottles are $540. Twelve are $1,080, and twelve ship free outside Hawaii and Alaska. Each bottle on this listing is $90.

Stone fruit, white flowers, and a palate with shoulders

The winery's note on this 2024 talks about pure, lifted aromatics and weight that never gets heavy. Ripe yellow and green stone fruit, white flowers in the morning, then a palate that is broad, compact, and structured. That is the glass they are describing, and it matches the vintage they called classic: flavor and acid in the same sip.

Wine-Searcher, checked on 2026-10-29, put the U.S. market low at $74.52 and the average at $83.83. This listing is $90, the price held for the bottle. The corner above carries those three figures and the link to the public find page.

The photograph is veraison in the Kistler vines, the moment the fruit takes color. Read it as the house in midseason, not as a portrait of this exact pick. What you pour is the 2024 Sonoma Mountain Chardonnay.

Steve Kistler started it. Jason Kesner makes it.

Steve Kistler and Mark Bixler founded the house in 1978. Bill Price bought an interest from Steve in 2008. Jason Kesner started growing fruit for the house in the spring of 2000, moved into the cellar in 2008, and is now president and winemaker. Steve retired at the end of 2017. About forty-nine people work here, and the house still describes itself as farmers first.

Seventeen vineyards sit across five appellations. The lineup includes twelve single-vineyard Chardonnays. This bottle is not one of those designates. It is the Sonoma Mountain appellation, McCrea fruit, the heritage selection, ten months in barrel. The two men in the photograph are Steve Kistler and Jason Kesner. The vines behind them are the house, not a claim that this frame is the McCrea block.

What you add is the 2024. Sonoma Mountain Chardonnay, unfined, unfiltered, at $90. The score beside it is Galloni's 94.

A roast chicken, or Dungeness crab

Stone fruit and a little oak want something with a browned surface, and the acid wants something that can stand a squeeze of lemon. A roast chicken does the first job. The skin takes the barrel spice. The meat is rich enough for a Chardonnay that finished malolactic, and the wine's acid cuts the jus.

Dungeness crab does the second job. Sweet meat, drawn butter, lemon. The white flowers and the stone fruit sit next to the crab without covering it. Serve the wine cool. Both plates leave the 2024 room to taste like Sonoma Mountain.