Winemaker Notes
Aromas of white peach, citrus zest, wet stone, sea foam and grilled nuts. On the palate, fresh clementine orange, ripe pear and salt water taffy.
Try with creamy garlic lobster fettucine or grilled tofu cobb salad.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Chardonnay HMR Vineyard is all varietal and comes from a site in the Adelaida region of Paso Robles. It's clean and bright on the palate, with lots of fresh orchard fruits, crushed citrus, toasted bread, and flowers. This carries to a medium-bodied Chardonnay with nicely integrated acidity, a clean, focused mouthfeel, and a great finish.
Range: 91-93 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chardonnay HMR Estate Vineyard, aged nine months in 30% new French oak, offers fragrant apricot with tones of musk, white pepper, honeycomb and roasted almonds. The palate is silky, plush and expansive with savory fruits and a spicy, uplifted finish.
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Wine Spectator
Bursting with peach and apricot flavors, this offers butterscotch pudding, candied ginger peel, orange sherbet and mango notes that are plump, aromatic and generous.
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.
Paso Robles has made a name for itself as a source of supple, powerful, fruit-driven Central Coast wines. But with eleven smaller sub-AVAs, there is actually quite a bit of diversity to be found in this inland portion of California’s Central Coast.
Just east over the Santa Lucia Mountains from the chilly Pacific Ocean, lie the coolest in the region: Adelaida, Templeton Gap and (Paso Robles) Willow Creek Districts, as well as York Mountain AVA and Santa Margarita Ranch. These all experience more ocean fog, wind and precipitation compared to the rest of the Paso sub-appellations. The San Miguel, (Paso Robles) Estrella, (Paso Robles) Geneso, (Paso Robles) Highlands, El Pomar and Creston Districts, along with San Juan Creek, are the hotter, more western appellations of the greater Paso Robles AVA.
This is mostly red wine country, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel standing out as the star performers. Other popular varieties include Merlot, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, Syrah, Grenache and Rhône blends, both red and white. There is a fairly uniform tendency here towards wines that are unapologetically bold and opulently fruit-driven, albeit with a surprising amount of acidity thanks to the region’s chilly nighttime temperatures.