Greg Brewer of Brewer-Clifton has a good thing going with his new project Diatom. Using fruit from the famous Clos Pepe vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills, he has made a thrilling Chardonnay. The idea is to let the pure expression -- what he calls the voice -- of the terroir come through by eliminating everything extraneous. He doesn't use any oak, for example. The result is a focused, finely nuanced Chardonnay with scents of ocean and flowers, an alluring mineral character, and a finespun, lingering finish.
This is a Chardonnay that shines with food: Oysters immediately come to mind because it has something of a Chablis-like character.
