Hartford Court Seascape Vineyard Chardonnay 2016
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Robert
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Jeb
Dunnuck -
Wine &
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Hartford Court Chardonnay Seascape Vineyard leaps from the glass with exuberant notes of green mangoes, yuzu, mandarin peel and pink grapefruit with touches of baker's yeast, pie crust, beeswax and oyster shell. It's medium-bodied with a very, very taut, intense and refreshing palate, sporting incredible tension and layers and finishing very long and very minerally.
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Jeb Dunnuck
In the same league as the 2015 and flirting with perfection, the 2016 Chardonnay Seascape Vineyard comes from a ridgetop vineyard located at 1,150 feet above sea-level, just west of the town of Occidental. It was fermented and aged 16 months in 30% new French oak. Salty sea breeze, lemon curd, white flowers, beautiful minerality, and hints of toasted bread all flow to a medium to full-bodied, rich, powerful Chardonnay that has awesome purity, building density and depth on the palate, and bright acidity that carries through the finish. It's straight-up awesome.
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Wine & Spirits
The Jackson family planted this ridge west of Occidental, a site neighboring the Cobb family’s Coastlands Vineyard and fully exposed to the Pacific. The cool site translates into a musky chardonnay, as if the fog-infused grapes never ripened much past orange-blossom scents. Yet the wine feels fully mature, its rich textures held tight by firm acidity. Distinctly a wine of the coast, it’s ready for Dungeness crab.
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2019-
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Robert
Parker
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Robert
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Jeb
Dunnuck
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Jeb
Dunnuck -
Robert
Parker -
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Jeb
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Robert
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Robert
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Making delicious wines of high personality is directly related to the difficult locations of the Hartford family's vineyard sources, the limited production of their bottlings and the varietals they use. "Character through adversity" is an expression that the Hartford family believes to apply to both people and grapevines, and they feel that surviving adversity builds character, and personality, in both.
The Hartford Family makes wines under two marks, one of which is Hartford Court. Hartford Court bottlings are small lots of high-personality single vineyard Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays that express the distinctive qualities inherent in each vineyard's terroir - the interplay of soil, slope, exposure and climate. The fruit is sourced from the Russian River Valley, Green Valley and Sonoma Coast appellations.
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.