Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Rating 97-100. The 2015 Chardonnay Ritchie (from 43-year-old vines) offers loads of tangerine and orange tropical fruit notes along with brioche and citrus oil. Production was tiny on these old vines, exaggerated by the poor flowering. Produced from 100% Old Wente clone, this wine also shows wet gravelly minerality, terrific natural acidity from the super-concentrated, tiny berries, and a long, full-bodied finish. It should drink well for 10-15 years, possibly longer.
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James Suckling
Sliced apple and lime. White flower undertones. Medium to full body, intense center palate of stone and pomace undertones. Very long and flavorful.
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.