Fort Ross Vineyard Chardonnay 2014
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Chardonnay Fort Ross Vineyard is a beauty. It spent 10 months in 30% new French oak (785 cases) and shows notes of crushed wet rock, crisp orange blossom, white currant and discrete oak. Some poached pear also makes an impression in this unfined and unfiltered Chardonnay that should drink nicely for 5 to 7 years.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Accurately representing the true Sonoma Coast AVA, the 2014 Fort Ross Chardonnay is a very together wine—aromatic core fruits, broad palate textures and fresh minerality. The wine's appealing fruitiness and bright acidity pair it famously with pan-seared sand dabs. Drinks well now. (Tasted: August 22, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
This well-made, crisply styled wine is zesty in lime and stony minerality, with a background grasp of the sea. Briny, it has well-manicured layers of toasty oak, green apple and persistent acidity—a wise choice for the table.
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Wine Spectator
Robust and richly flavored, built around honeyed apricot, fig and melon notes, with cedary oak accents. Ends with a woody aftertaste, but nothing time won't resolve. Drink now through 2020. 785 cases made.
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Nestled on a sunny coastal ridge, overlooking the Pacific Ocean a mile below, Fort Ross'"True Sonoma Coast" vineyard is one of the closest, if not the closest, to the ocean in all of California. From the vineyard you can see the breaking surf and the misty silhouettes of Bodega Head and Pt. Reyes far below. The vineyard's high elevation above the coastal fog and its proximity to the ocean provide a gentle, sunny and temperate climate that has proved to be very favorable for the slow and even ripening of Burgundian varietals.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
On the far western edge of the larger Sonoma Coast appellation, the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA hugs right up against the Pacific coast. Vineyards, planted at rugged elevations between 920 to 1,800 feet, occupy only two percent of the total land in the AVA. Fort Ross-Seaview growers believe that the region boasts an ideal mix of sunshine, cool air and beneficial stress for producing high quality Chardonnay and Pinot noir.