Winemaker Notes
Nearly perfect, the 2005 Chardonnay Reuling Vineyard boasts fabulous intensity, virtually perfect balance, and remarkable notes of liquid stones intermixed with orange marmalade, honeysuckle, white peaches, and a touch of spice.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
There are 350 cases of the 2005 Chardonnay Reuling Vineyard, which comes from the Goldridge soils of this Sonoma Coast site. This Chardonnay comes from a clone suitcased over from the Montrachet vineyard in Burgundy. There is no doubting the liquid minerality, striking honeyed citrus, white currant, hazelnut, and brioche notes are more French than California, but the power and richness are pure New World. An absolutely remarkable Chardonnay that is certainly one of the top half dozen or so Chardonnays I have ever tasted from California.
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Wine Spectator
Very ripe and opulent, showing sweet pear, fig and apple fruit, with hints of spice and melon. Keeps a focus on the ripe fruit, ending with a persistent aftertaste.
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.