Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
While Mark Aubert no longer produces wines from the famed Ritchie vineyard, in the past it produced a fantastic string of classic Aubert-style, age-worthy Chardonnays from 30+-year-old Old Wente clone vines. Bright, lemon-gold in color with a slightly green tinge at the rim, the 2007 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard has a glorious nutty, baked peaches and dried apricot-scented nose with hints of lemon butter and cinnamon toast plus a waft of fresh hay. It has a savory-laced, full-bodied palate, completely coating the mouth with lemon curd and nutty/toasty notes, finishing on a persistent minerally note.
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Wine Spectator
A rich, creamy style, with tiers of spicy fig, melon, hazelnut and nutmeg all folding together in a tightly focused core of flavors. Full-bodied and bold, without being heavy, ending with delicacy and finesse. Drink now through 2013.
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.