98pts Wine Advocate
The 2021 Chardonnay The Estate is delightfully decadent and almost feels like a guilty pleasure—it's so packed with flavor! It has gregarious aromatic layers of warm peach, summer honey, candied citrus and wafts of allspice. The medium-bodied palate is luxuriously satiny and features expansive, concentrated flavors. Despite its generosity, it maintains balance with bright acidity, and it has an epically long finish.
95pts Vinous
The 2021 Chardonnay Wayfarer Vineyard is brilliant. Bright, effusive and full of character, the 2021 shows why this site is so ideal for Chardonnay. Lemon peel, mint, crushed rocks, white pepper and tangerine oil all grace this exquisite, finely sculpted Chardonnay. It's all class and pedigree here.
93pts Wine Spectator
Packs intense lemon and litsea oil aromatics up front, with a firm, crunchy note to the acidity and generous green pear, lemon, pineapple and jasmine accents on a sleek, juicy frame. Reveals smoked salt and a crisp, zesty finish, with plenty of torque. Drink now through 2028.
History
Wayfarer was founded as a secluded farmstead more than 40 years ago, before its locale was defined as the now coveted Fort Ross Seaview AVA. In 1989, Jayson Pahlmeyer's winemaker, Helen Turley, discovered the site for sale down the road from her Marcassin vineyard. She introduced Pahlmeyer, declaring it destined to become "the La Tache of California."
In tandem with his daughter Cleo and renowned winemaker Bibiana Gonzales Rave, Pahlmeyer drives to make intricate wines of transcendence, answering to powerful, ever-unpredictable climate that rewards only the most observant and meticulous. It is an endeavor of true passion, an experiment that pushes the exactitude of winegrowing and winemaking to the farthest limits.
