Winemaker Notes
Enticing aromas of citrus, fresh peach, and heady floral notes, the nose foreshadows the taste. A rich mouth-feel with full textural and aromatic intensity, The Call to Adventure seduces with each sip.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Formerly called the Pratt Vineyard Chardonnay, the 2017 Chardonnay Call To Adventure offers a deep, rich bouquet of caramelized stone fruits, brioche, white flowers, and a hint of honeysuckle. Medium to full-bodied and powerful on the palate, it has an incredible sense of purity and class, flawless balance, and a great, great finish. It tastes like a top Meursault; it's going to keep for over a decade. It’s just another sensational wine from this incredible winemaker.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Call to Adventure has a wonderfully perfumed nose of honeysuckle, nutmeg, cream and fresh peaches with a core of ripe tree fruits and a mineral streak. Light to medium-bodied, it's creamy and luscious in the mouth with spicy fruits and a strong rocky line, lifted by tangy acidity and finishing long and very spicy.
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Wine Enthusiast
Pristine and pillowy aromas of white peach, sea salt and creamy white fruits show on the inviting nose of this bottling by Bibiana González Rave. Ripe nectarine and apricot flavors are seasoned with more sea salt on the clean umami-rich palate, which finishes with a hint of ash.
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 standout region for its decidedly Californian take on Burgundian varieties, the Russian River Valley is named for the eponymous river that flows through it. While there are warm pockets of the AVA, it is mostly a cool-climate growing region thanks to breezes and fog from the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir reign supreme in Russian River, with the best examples demonstrating a unique combination of richness and restraint. The cool weather makes Russian River an ideal AVA for sparkling wine production, utilizing the aforementioned varieties. Zinfandel also performs exceptionally well here. Within the Russian River Valley lie the smaller appellations of Chalk Hill and Green Valley. The former, farther from the ocean, is relatively warm, with a focus on red and white Bordeaux varieties. The latter is the coolest, foggiest parcel of the Russian River Valley and is responsible for outstanding Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.