Chardonnay, Napa Valley, Freemark Abbey 2024
James Suckling 94 (2025)
Mix any six bottles and you pay the Any 6+ price at checkout — no code needed.
£10 tracked UK delivery, however many bottles.
We pack and send twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, by Royal Mail Tracked 48.
Members pay £32.80 — £8.20 less on this bottle. Membership is £120 a year and carries the EDKA Promise. Membership terms
Why this wine
Freemark Abbey has been making Napa Chardonnay since the nineteenth century, and this is the house style at its most recognisable: French oak and creamy texture held in check by the acidity of cooler Carneros fruit. A useful reference point for what Napa Chardonnay does well.
At a glance
- Grape
- Chardonnay
- Region
- California, USA
- Alcohol
- 14.30%
- Body
- Full
- Acidity
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Medium (5-10 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Poultry & Pork, Seafood, Cheese
How it tastes
Lemon zest, lime leaf and mandarin lead into baked apple, Bosc pear and hazelnut, with vanilla and oak spice behind. The palate is rich and creamy but carries a vibrant line of acidity, so the weight never turns heavy. Chardonnay 100%.
The producer
Freemark Abbey is one of Napa Valley's historic estates, founded in 1886 by Josephine Tychson, one of the first female winemakers in California, and renamed in 1939 when Charles Freeman, Markquand Foster and Abbey Ahern combined their names; the winery gained wider recognition at the 1976 Judgement of Paris tasting. This Chardonnay is blended from the Ahmann, Huichica Hills, Keyes and Rancho Sarco vineyards, the cooler Carneros sites near San Francisco Bay bringing citrus freshness while vines planted further east in 1978 add pear and blossom. Kristy Melton fermented the hand-harvested, hand-sorted fruit in temperature-controlled stainless steel with selected yeasts, then aged 94% of the wine for nine months in French oak, 44% of it new.
Food and drinking
Serve at 10-12°C. It suits roast chicken, crab linguine, grilled halibut with a butter sauce, or a wedge of Comté. Drink over the next five to ten years; it needs no decanting. Suitable for vegetarians.