Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Tasting Panel
A juicy Chard with notes of toasty vanilla oak; sleek and balanced with lovely structure and length.
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Always a player from California's Central Coast, the Cambria Estate Vineyards & Winery Chardonnay—made from the certified sustainable Katherine's Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley AVA—has produced a solid effort. TASTING NOTES: The 2015 Katherine's Vineyard Chardonnay deftly intertwines ripe core, savory oak, and a long palate presence. Enjoy this wine with scallops sautéed in brown butter. (Tasted: February 16, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chardonnay Bench Break offers up notes of ripe apricots, honeydew melon and grapefruit with touches of brioche and toasted almonds. Medium-bodied, it has a pleasantly creamy texture with tons of stone fruit and citrus flavors, finishing long. Awesome value!
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 lesser-known but elite AVA within the larger Santa Barbara district, the Santa Maria Valley AVA runs precisely west to east starting near the coast. The valley funnels cool, Pacific Ocean air to the vineyards more inland, allowing grapes a longer hang time to ripen evenly and achieve their full potential by harvest time. Combined with minimal rainfall, consistent warm sunshine, and well-drained soils, it is an ideal environment for grape growing.
Many of the wineries here are small and highly respected, having established a reputation in the 1970s and 80s for producing excellent Central Coast wines like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. More recently, Syrah has also proven quite successful in the region. Many vineyards are owned by growers who sell their grapes to other wineries, so it is common to see the same vineyard name on bottlings from different wineries. Bien Nacido Vineyard is perhaps the best-known and most prestigious.