Bethel Heights Vineyard Casteel Reserve Chardonnay - 2022 (750ml)

93 points Wine Review Online

This is excellent Chardonnay that will actually improve during the next couple of years, as its oak integrates more fully with the wine’s fruit component. Tasted now, the fruit and oak notes (spices, toast, and a little tug of wood tannin) come across as distinct elements. That’s not a flaw, as the elements are quite well suited to one another in their prominence in the overall sensory impression left both aromatically and in flavor, but this will be even more harmonious and complex with another year or two in bottle. The fruit is certainly up to the challenge of integrating the oak, with ample richness and very pleasing flavors that range from ripe apples to stone fruits to a more subtle tropical dimension. Very well grown and made. - Michael Franz

93+ points Robert Parker

The 2022 Chardonnay Casteel has deep aromas of peach, honey, pie crust and hints of crème fraîche. The light-bodied palate offers delicate, gently honeyed notes—it seems to have closed significantly since bottling. Its shy fruit is structured by bright acidity, and it has an elegant, perfumed finish. Give it 2-3+ years in the bottle. Erin Brooks

93 points Vinous Media

Sweetly floral, the 2022 Chardonnay Casteel opens with a lovely blend of white flowers and raw almonds complementing crushed apples and pears. This opens with a lovely inner sweetness, seamlessly silky and refined, with crisp orchard fruits and hints of spice toward the close. The 2022 tapers off with an abundance of tension and a coating of saline minerals, leaving an herbal tinge as the senses salivate for more. Crunchy, packed full of complexity and wonderfully balanced, this is impossible to ignore. - By Eric Guido on May 2024