Well, the first mention of Walson Holland on Berserkers! Benny is a very close friend and I’m connected with the winery so glad you enjoyed the whites. I think the white Rhone blend is world class and hope to see more domestic wineries play around with the style. Sorry you didn’t enjoy the red as much. We did some blind tastings and it held up with the big boys from this area.
I would say bring Walson Holland to the tasting and see how it holds up. Would love to see some formal notes afterwards. Cheers!
The constraint of Chardonnay + white blend + Syrah/Rhone blend I think limits one either to a narrow, very specific set of small producers or somewhat bigger producers with a broad portfolio. The tricky part is that Chardonnay + Syrah will tend to put you in the cool climate winemaker/producer grouping, while white blend + Rhone blend will tend to put you in the moderate to warm climate grouping.
You are kind of asking for a “jack of all trades”, which requires care in selection to avoid the “master of none” producer with a big portfolio simply to cover all bases in the tasting room.
As others have mentioned, Holus Bolus/Joy Fantastic is a great options since they have Chardonnay, Roussanne (not technically a blend, but an excellent white Rhone from Bien Nacido), and multiple Syrahs. Fairly under the radar, but that may not be so for much longer.
Margerum/Barden is an excellent mid-size producer as well, and you actually have multiple ways to cover your request across their 2 labels. Foxen is another that comes to mind, as well as Ojai, which was mentioned up thread. None of these are under-the-radar producers and would definitely fall into the established if not old guard producers. Even though these three cover a lot of ground varietally speaking, they definitely are not in the “master of none” category.
Larry/Tercero is a great option if you can relax the Chardonnay constraint . . . .
Holland is definitely at a higher price point than the others I mentioned . . . . in that case I’ll second the Hilt/Jonata suggestion from earlier, which will provide coverage of the requested varieties at a higher budget level.
