Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Mark Aubert farms 39-year-old vines in the famous Ritchie Vineyard. At 1,200 cases, the 2012 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard is the largest production cuvee of these Chardonnays. It reveals a more evolved nose of smoky hazelnuts, honeysuckle, and tropical fruits, less minerality, and full-bodied unctuosity buttressed by crisp acids. It is a fatter, richer, complex, more California-styled Chardonnay that should drink well for 6-8 years.
Range: 95-98 -
Jeb Dunnuck
I’m not sure anyone does it better in California when it comes to world-class Chardonnay, and Aubert’s 2012 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard is just another brilliant example of sensational winemaking and a fabulous terroir. Now at 14 years after the vintage, it’s fully mature yet still vibrant and youthful, with a medium gold hue, beautiful aromatics of creamed corn, flower oil, toasted spice, almond paste, and honeyed minerality, full-bodied richness, a round, layered mouthfeel, remarkable purity and precision, and a great finish.
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Wine Spectator
Pure, rich and lively, with peach, nectarine, smoke and honeydew notes giving this a wealth of core flavors. The aromatics and graceful mix of balance, texture and subtlety give this extra dimensions. Drink now through 2020.
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.