I seem to spend much of my time wading through endless bottles of mediocre California wines that I sometimes wonder how the place ever got its reputation for fine winemaking. And then, pow! along comes a St Paul moment and I run across a winery making some seriously good wine, wine of subtle complexity, elegance and finesse, like Flora Springs.

I first encountered their Rutherford Hillside Reserve Cab at a tasting last October, and ranked it second out of twelve California offerings. Then, at the lunch, I found myself sitting next to Nat Komes whose family owns Flora Springs. So impressed was I by the way he talked about his family’s wines that I decided to take a look at some of their other bottlings, and thus discovered their sublime Barrel Fermented Chardonnay 2006.

It shows the same magical combination of mineral-intense ripe fruit and crisp green-apple acidity that you find in great Burgundies but that’s all too rare in New World chards. It’s rich and powerful without even a hint of sticky sweetness, despite being fermented in oak, and represents the perfect marriage of Californian power with Burgundian elegance. This is chardonnay, or California chardonnay, as it should be.