Chappellet Grower Collection Calesa Vineyard Chardonnay 2017
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The 2017 growing season yielded a radiant expression of Chardonnay at Calesa Vineyard, with inviting aromas of Meyer lemon, orange zest, and hints of tropical flowers. On the palate, luxurious layers of brioche, melted butter, and baking spices add depth and complexity to flavors of lemon drop, lychee, and apricot, with fine-tuned acidity and subtle hints of smoke and sweet oak carrying through to a long, satisfying finish.
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
Fresh, crisp, and juicy with a rich texture and an elegant style that combines tangy citrus and lush, creamy, vanillainfluenced elements.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Grower Collection Calesa Vineyard is reticent on the nose at first, opening to apple blossom and wet stone with green and white fruits, fresh herbs, underlying spices and an intriguing note of tangerine peel. Medium-bodied, with a fantastic creamy/silky texture, it fills the mouth with spicy fruits and a line of rocky minerality, ending with nutty/honeyed nuances. Give this some time in the bottle. Rating: 93+
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Jeb Dunnuck
Readers will know this estate more for their Napa Valley releases, but they have some beautiful Sonoma County releases as well. The 2017 Chardonnay Chappellet Grower Collection Calesa Vineyard comes from a site in the Petaluma Gap and was aged nine months in barrel. It has a pretty, melon, tropical, and salty Seabreeze like perfume as well as medium body, good freshness and acidity, and a great finish. It's certainly an outstanding Chardonnay that should keep for 4-5 years or more.
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Wine Spectator
Creamy, featuring layers of butter pastry, baked apple and pear tart flavors that are lusciously spiced. Shows mouthfilling viscosity on the spicy finish, with some savory hints. Drink now through 2023.
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James Suckling
There’s a simple array of ripe pear and melon aromas here with poached-pear flavor on the palate, delivering simple, fleshy and round appeal. Neat, phenolic edge to the finish. Drink now.
Other Vintages
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The Chappellets' romance with Pritchard Hill began when Donn and Molly Chappellet first glimpsed the mountain's spectacular vistas in the late 1960s. Inspired by the notion that Bacchus loves the hills, Donn and Molly followed the advice of legendary winemaker André Tchelistcheff and settled on the rocky eastern slopes of the Napa Valley. There, on the mountain’s serene and picturesque hillsides, the Chappellets established their home and winery, raising their children and cultivating the vineyards.
Since being founded by Donn and Molly in 1967, Chappellet has earned acclaim championing the robust power and complexity of wines crafted from mountain grapes. At the same time, Chappellet has helped to establish Pritchard Hill as one of California’s most revered winegrowing sites. To honor the mountain's rich, expressive character, the winemaking team focuses on creating extraordinary, age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignons that embody the intensity and finesse of fruit from Pritchard Hill.
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.