As I continue to taste the new/upcoming 2022 Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs emerging from Sonoma, I am increasingly impressed by the quality coming from what is a notoriously challenging vintage for California. It’s as though these grape varieties are from another 2022 world. Prime examples include the line-ups from Kistler and DuMOL, which I tasted earlier this month.

Another 2022 World

2022 was tracking to be a mild, moderately warm vintage for Northern California until Mother Nature decided to throw growers a heatwave curve ball during the first week of September. Temperatures started to soar on September 3rd, Labor Day weekend, and the heat lasted for six straight days. Growers in Napa’s Oakville and St. Helena AVAs reported highs of 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The impact of such extreme, sustained heat was brutal.

Many California winemakers were able to bring in some fruit before and during this heat event, but a significant portion of the Bordeaux red varieties were not ripe at this stage. That means most Napa vintners had to ride the potentially devastating wave for a proportion of their crop.

To be clear, Sonoma did not escape the 2022 Labor Day heat dome. The big difference between its impact on Sonoma vs. Napa is the grape varieties. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay bud and ripen earlier than Cabernet Sauvignon. Therefore, these varieties, and Pinot in particular, were tracking ahead of the Cabernet. Many Pinot and Chardonnay sites were ripe/harvested before or as the heat came.

Another factor I’ve found with the 2022s is that Chardonnay is surprisingly resilient to these heat events. Similar Labor Day heatwaves hit California in 2017 and 2020, yet the Chardonnays from both vintages are gorgeous. The same is true for the 2022s—including those harvested well after the heat event. For example, one of my favorite 2022 Chardonnays from Peter Michael was the Belle Côte, which finished harvest in October 2022.

As another example, I refer readers to the article I wrote last fall on Aubert’s 2022 Chardonnays tasted from barrel.

“Yes, it hit the 100+ F temperatures during the day in Sonoma,” said Mark Aubert. “But then cooled down quickly at night. We were careful with leaves covering fruit, and we came off unscathed. Thank God it was an early vintage! Our vineyards are such that we never want the fruit to be too exposed to the sun to risk sunburn. But the young vines were declassified in 2022. We put this fruit out for bulk. Overall, the alcohols are a little lower in 2022. The late spring rain got more nitrogen in the grapes, so the ferments were very smooth this year. Chardonnay is so adaptable; it can handle the heat. These 2022s are incredibly fresh. They have all the underpinnings of everything we like. With this vintage, we’re already seeing wonderful clarity in the wines.”

I’ve found the 2022 Sonoma Chardonnays to be a little closed and restrained in youth compared to the 2019s, 2020s, and 2021s. Yet, from the beginning, they have shown great seamlessness and texture. Only now are the aromas and flavors starting to unfurl in all their crunchy orchard fruit and savory suggestions glory. Meanwhile, the Pinots have been out of the gate bold and expressive, generally with less structure than the 2021s, delivering gregarious personalities.

My visits earlier this month to Kistler and DuMOL underscored what I have already been seeing: 2022 is a very different vintage than the bright, intense 2021 vintage, yet quality remains just as high for most 2022 Chardonnays and many Pinot Noirs.

Kistler Vineyards

As with most other Sonoma Chardonnay and Pinot Noir producers, Kistler’s 2022 yields were affected by shatter (coulure).

“We had poor fruit set in 2022—that was our only challenge,” said Kistler’s winemaker and president, Jason Kesner. “But then again, there’s a certain romance to not having to do anything, in not having to drop any fruit. Crops were not super far off average, about 2.5 tons per acre when we’re usually closer to 2.75 or 3 tons per acre.”

Their 2022 harvest was tracking earlier from the outset.

“We were tracking 2.5 to 3 weeks earlier with budbreak,” said Jason. “This accounts for the earlier harvest date, but the wines weren’t earlier harvested.”

Jason pointed out that 2022 was mostly mild, accounting for the soft-spoken, nuanced style of the Chardonnays.

“It was such a beautiful respite from the heat of 2020 and the drought of 2021,” he remarked. “We had good rain the winter before. We weren’t completely out of the drought in 2022, but we were almost there. We even had about an inch of rain in June. So, there’s a real vineyard specificity of the wines this year, for certain. This is reflective of that milder growing season. In fact, 2022 was mild for us except for that heat event in September, but we were almost all in by then and picked the rest through the event. There’s an endearing sense of freshness in the wines. I’m very excited about the aging potential. It was a very different story for Cabernet, but that variety was in a different place when the heat hit.”

As for the character of the wines, he said, “I think we captured the wines at just the right time; the grapes were just ripe. There’s a real savoriness to the Chardonnays, like a peach skin character, not that juicy fruit you tend to get in warmer years. There is, therefore, an interesting interplay with the sulfides and that just ripe fruit.”

With everything in balance and slowly emerging aromas/flavors, I agree with Jason’s comment that the Chardonnays will have wonderful cellaring potential and are poised to reward patience.

DuMOL

Andy Smith, winegrower and proprietor at DuMOL, commented on how shy their 2022 Chardonnays were in barrel.

“I don’t remember a vintage where the wines developed in barrel quite as much,” he said. “The quality kind of snuck up on us during the elevage. As we came through malo-lactic, the wines really developed. And so we aged the wines a little longer in the barrel. These were bottled in February as opposed to November or December.”

The big news this year at DuMOL is Jenna Davis’s promotion to winemaker. Jenna started at DuMOL in 2014 as a harvest intern and has been working closely under Andy’s mentorship since.

While tasting through the 2022s with Jenna and Andy, Jenna commented, “The spring of 2022 was quite a difficult frost season. The early budbreak made it very nerve-wracking. We lost a little bit to frost. Then, it was a relatively dry growing season. We started harvesting on August 12th. For the Chardonnays, we were around 80% in before the heat, and all the Pinots were in before the heat.”

“It was a moderate crop for Chardonnay,” added Andy. “Our overall yields were about a third down on average. Our alcohols are a little lower than average—from mid-13% to low 14% alcohols across the board. Also, it’s not a high-acid vintage, and we have slightly higher pH levels. The styles remind me of the 2019s.”

I agree that structurally, DuMOL’s 2022s are similar to the 2019s, yet the expressions are a little more subtle and savory, in my view. For those that embrace Chardonnays and Pinots with a sense of natural grace and elegance, these 2022 DuMOLs are for you!

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Article & Reviews by Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW
Photography by Johan Berglund