Wine professionals, writers and their ilk, are prone to frequent deprecations of California chardonnay. While much of this is snobbish condescension, it does carry more than a kernel of justification – there is just too much of this over-oaked banana juice despoiling people’s palates and deluding them into thinking that this is real wine.

The trouble, in part, is California’s too-generous sunshine. It makes it easy to pick over-ripe grapes that in turn lead to super-concentrated, high-alcohol wines.

But some of it is a stylistic choice on the part of the winemaker. So last week and this  I am highlighting two winemakers who are bucking this trend, last week with pinot noir and this with chardonnay.

Larry Hyde has been growing some of the most sought-after chardonnay grapes in Carneros for 30 years. The roster of winemakers who purchase his grapes reads like a who’s who of high-end California chardonnay – Ramey, Paul Hobbs, Kistler are just a few. But in 2000, in conjunction with his partner, Aubert de Villaine, whose day job is co-director of the storied Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in Burgundy, he decided to try his hand at making his own wine.

de Villaine & Hyde

And in this he has succeeded spectacularly – his Five Star-rated HdV Chardonnay 2005 ($60) is a miracle of Montrachet-like achievement.

Even on the nose it astounds, so powerful and intense is that Burgundian combination of fruit and earthy minerality.

The lush richness appears as a paradox – it is intense yet remarkably restrained, and when combined with the beautifully balanced, green apple freshness results in a wine of glorious harmony.

One of the secrets here is old vines because, as Hyde explained to me, “Older vines accumulate sugar more slowly than younger vines. So you pick later, which means more time on the vine so the fruit acquires more richness and body. The real bonus is that those old vines also expire their acidity more sloooooowly, leaving you with more acidity, and less alcohol, more richness. Just what we are looking for in our wines.”

Half an hour after decanting the wine was opening up nicely and showing that richness Hyde was talking about. All the elements – the honeyed fruit, the crisp acidity – had melded harmoniously, and along with the now even more pronounced slatey minerality combined in a truly extraordinary wine, a wine so glorious it’s positively life-affirming.

I felt, in fact, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge who

“on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise.”

Not an inconsequential achievement for an old California grape grower.

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For the budget-conscious, or those a little less stricken with Paradise, Hyde also makes a second label chardonnay, the De La Guerra, for $40. It comes from younger vines – though at 13-plus years they are older than most in California – and is a little lighter, doesn’t have the decadent richness of HdeV, but is delightfully fresh, lively and packed with minerality.

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To find this wine near you, try www.wine-searcher.com