Winemaker Notes
Perfect with seafood and more delicate fish, ideally grilled a la plancha (perhaps with rosemary).
Blend: 60% Grenache Blanc, 32% Vermentino, 8% Clairette Blanche
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Bonny Doon and founder Randall Grahm were pioneers in the production of Rhône varietal wines in California's Central Coast region. Grahm sold the winery in January 2020, but stayed on as head winemaker. This complex blend of predominantly Grenache Blanc, along with Vermentino and a little Clairette, was produced biodynamically and is unoaked. Ripe and juicy, this has pronounced notes of sweet peach fruit and a waft of jasmine fragrance. It's rounded but with good freshness, and a steal at this price. Grab a bottle of the excellent red, too.
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Wine Enthusiast
Lightly candied honeydew and peach aromas are delicate and clean, as jasmine and white spring flowers add a floral kick to this blend of 60% Grenache Blanc, 32% Vermentino and 8% Clairette Blanche. There's a steely line of minerality to the grippy sip, where peach-rind and orange-blossom flavors converge.
Full-bodied and flavorful, white Rhône blends originate from France’s Rhône Valley. Today these blends are also becoming popular in other regions. Typically some combination of Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier form the basis of a white Rhône blend with varying degrees of flexibility depending on the exact appellation. Somm Secret—In the Northern Rhône, blends of Marsanne and Roussanne are common but the south retains more variety. Marsanne, Roussanne as well as Bourboulenc, Clairette, Picpoul and Ugni Blanc are typical.
Named after the dramatic, seasonal river of rain and snowmelt that cuts through the upper elevations of the Santa Lucia Mountains, the Arroyo Seco AVA extends east from the resultant mountain gorge, and into the rural and warm Salinas Valley. During the growing season, cool and damp Pacific Ocean air penetrates the gorge and flows into the valley, creating a cool evening respite for vineyards after a hot summer day. This natural water-release has also created a subterranean aquifer, which helps set the foundation of the AVA's boundaries and supplies the vineyards with water.
Arroyo Seco was actually home to the first commercial vineyard in California, called Mission Ranch, which was owned and propogated by the Mirassou family in the 1960s.
Chardonnay is most widely grown here. But as one of Monterey’s warmer regions, Arroyo Seco enjoys the highest praise for its reds, namely Bordeaux blends.
Arroyo Seco is one of the oldest AVAs in California, its status granted in the early 1980s, and also remains one of its smallest.