The days are getting darker. Pour a luxe white wine to cope.

As the shortest day of the year grows near and night begins falling well before we pour dinnertime wine, the perfect season for savoring rich winter whites like this luxurious Sonoma chardonnay has arrived.

The white wines we crave in warmer weather — pinot grigio, albariño, or sauvignon blanc — are almost always light in body, brisk in acidity, and typically fermented in inert steel tanks. This method is chosen to economize, of course, but has the added benefit of preserving the fresh-picked vibrancy of fruit that defines summer-weight styles.

When it gets colder out in winter, our preferences move away from pure refreshment toward richness and the warmth that higher alcohol levels can provide, a seasonal shift that holds true even among those wine styles we serve chilled. Few wine grapes can do this gracefully, with chardonnay being the unrivaled queen of the winter whites.

The time-honored method for enriching white wines is to ferment in barrels made of oak and to then allow the wine to continue resting there for months in contact with its yeast sediment. Not only does this process produce a plush and silky mouthfeel, but both the oak and the yeast sediments boost the wine’s flavor in complementary ways. The oak taste is most noticeable, evoking the toasted pecan and baking spice flavors we associate with cognac or bourbon, while yeast adds more subtle accents of buttered toast. When added to Chardonnay’s base flavors of golden apples and ripe pears, the effect is much like transforming fresh apples into a decadent spiced and caramelized apple cake.

Ferrari-Carano has specialized in this rich style of chardonnay for decades and executes it brilliantly here, with an interesting twist. Where almost all of their competitors use 100% chardonnay grapes, their winemaker adds a tiny splash of fragrantly floral gewürztraminer to add flavor complexity, just as a mixologist might add a dash of orange bitters to round out their signature Manhattan.

Sonoma County, Calif., 14.5% ABV

PLCB item #8704, on sale $22.09 through Jan. 4 (regularly $29.09)

Also available at: Total Wine & More in Wilmington and Claymont, Del. ($17.99; totalwine.com), Moorestown Super Buy Rite in Moorestown ($17.99, moorestownbuyrite.com), and WineWorks in Marlton ($18.98; wineworksonline.com).