Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Moving to the four Chardonnays I was able to taste, the 2018 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast reveals a light gold color as well as a classy nose of baked apples, white flowers, honeysuckle, and toast. It’s clean, classy, and medium-bodied, with a great finish.
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James Suckling
Cooked-apple, yogurt and light coconut aromas follow through to the full body with layers of fruit and flavor. A little obvious, but delicious for a more upfront style.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast offers lovely butterscotch and dried apricots notes leading to wafts of poached pears and allspice. Medium-bodied, the palate delivers loads of verve and intensity, finishing on a lingering spicy note.
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.