Joseph Phelps Freestone Vineyards Chardonnay 2014
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Wine Enthusiast
This viscous wine offers an underlay of toasty oak notes that round out its gravelly texture. Light-bodied and filigreed with acidity, its lemon, quince and fig flavors remain fresh and vibrant on the palate.
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Wine & Spirits
Planted in 1999, the Joseph Phelps vineyard in Freestone grows over 20 acres of Chardonnay on wind-cooled hillsides. This vintage is vibrant and delicious: the richness of its oak quickly becomes an afterthought as the coltish acidity of the site takes hold, driving aromas of yellow raspberries and grapefruit that bristle with energy in the end. Decant this for mahi mahi, or age it another few years.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The 2014 Joseph Phelps Freestone Vineyards Chardonnay is a picture-perfect example of a high-quality Sonoma Coast white wine. The wine exhibits green apple, zesty minerality, and excellent acidity. The lively aftertaste makes this a superb wine with raw oysters. Drinks well now. (Tasted: October 10, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Connoisseurs' Guide
From their first appearance in these pages, the Phelps Freestone Chardonnays have shown admirably in their combined depth, richness and firm, ageworthy balance. And this new one is no different. If not the boldest wine around, it never stints on bright yet juicy fruit, rich but not overwhelming crème brûlée oakiness and exemplary acidity that makes itself known from first to last. It will hold up well in bottle and deserves every chance to knit more fully together.
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Joseph Phelps Vineyards is a family-owned winery committed to crafting world class, estate-grown wines. Founded in 1973 when Joe Phelps purchased a former cattle ranch near St. Helena in the Napa Valley, the winery now controls and farms nearly 375 acres of vines on eight estate vineyards in St. Helena, the Stags Leap District, Oakville, Rutherford, Oak Knoll District, Carneros and South Napa Valley. In 1999, the Phelps family added 100 acres of vineyard property near the town of Freestone on the Sonoma Coast, where Phelps now grows Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Phelps is best known for its flagship Napa Valley blend of red Bordeaux varietals, Insignia, first produced in 1974. Awarded Wine Spectator's "Wine of the Year" in 2005, Insignia is widely regarded as a qualitative benchmark for California winemaking.
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.
A vast appellation covering Sonoma County’s Pacific coastline, the Sonoma Coast AVA runs all the way from the Mendocino County border, south to the San Pablo Bay. The region can actually be divided into two sections—the actual coastal vineyards, marked by marine soils, cool temperatures and saline ocean breezes—and the warmer, drier vineyards further inland, which are still heavily influenced by the Pacific but not quite with same intensity.
Contained within the appellation are the much smaller Fort Ross-Seaview and Petaluma Gap AVAs.
The Sonoma Coast is highly regarded for elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, increasingly, cool-climate Syrah. The wines have high acidity, moderate alcohol, firm tannin, and balanced ripeness.