Napa Valley probably is not one of your go-to regions for everyday wines because of the high prices, especially for top reds that can cost more than $500 a bottle. But finding great value bottles in Napa is easier than you might think, especially when it comes to chardonnay. Even at a $15 price point, Napa chardonnays can be fresh with creamy citrus notes, pineapple fruit, baking spices on the nose and broad and pretty concentration on the palate. Some are even blessed with a subtle, flinty, almost mineral twist, making them cerebral and engaging and not just a pure hedonistic experience.

In our Top 100 Wines from the USA in 2020 report, the Aubert Chardonnay Napa Valley Sugar Shack Estate Vineyard 2017 took the No. 2 spot and underlined how Napa’s chardonnay wines should be viewed with the same esteem as the famous reds. One of our Top 100 Value Wines of 2020 was also a Napa chardonnay: the Beringer Chardonnay Napa Valley Private Reserve 2018, a wine that retails at less than $40.

Our recent report about Carneros, the AVA where Napa meets Sonoma, explained how this area now produces some of the finest, subtlest and most tantalizing chardonnays. Chardonnay, as Tor Kenward of Tor Wines pointed out,“is a winemaker’s wine, a tightrope walk of knowing when to pick, what oak to use, and many nuanced decisions that greatly influence the wine.” Indeed, chardonnay is like a fine, blank canvas where the coveted minerality and the nuanced complexity and subtlety come through with the fruit. In other words, if a chardonnay fails to effectively communicate its terroir, it’s the winemaker to blame!

We tightened our budget for this report and found five bottles of Napa chardonnays that deliver the quality of $50 bottles but only at a third of that price. We avoided overly heavy, obvious in-your-face wines (common in Napa!), and instead sought out brightness and subtle creaminess with fine oak and lees integration that enriches the wine but still allows the fruit to express authenticity and finesse.

– Zekun Shuai, associate editor