Chasing Ether White Wine California 2024

In Napa, precision often comes from repetition. From decades spent refining a single idea until it becomes ingrained. For winemaker Jon Berlin, that idea was Burgundian varietals. For more than twenty years, he was the force behind the wines of El Molino Winery in Napa Valley, where he crafted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with a distinctly old-world sensibility: quiet, measured, exacting. Wines that were defined less by volume than by restraint.

After two decades of discipline, Jon stepped out on his own with a simple idea: to bottle not just flavor, but feeling; that fleeting, almost intangible moment when a great bottle brings people into alignment. He calls it Chasing Ether — a nod to something unseen, but unmistakably felt. These are wines made to be shared: open-knit, expressive, and intentionally alive.

Jon’s debut white blend draws on his stately knowledge of Chardonnay and adds a twist with the addition of old-vine Chenin Blanc. Fermentations take place in a combination of neutral François Frères barrels and puncheon, with native yeast and full lees contact — not to mask the fruit, but to slow it down. To let it breathe into itself.

In the glass, the wine is pale straw with a green-gold edge. The nose is precise at first: Asian pear, quince, white peach, and lemongrass. Then air changes everything. Wet stone. Lanolin. A subtle, earthy depth that suggests shape beneath the brightness. On the palate, it’s textural rather than heavy; viscous in feel, but driven by electric acidity. Flavors stretch and pull rather than stack: stone fruit, citrus oil, crushed herbs, a saline thread of minerality running through the center. This is a wine built for early drinking, but not simplicity. It will evolve over the next four to six years, gaining weight and complexity in slow motion. Still, it feels almost wrong to wait.