Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
A mouthful of Chardonnay. Bold and richly flavored, with a mix of exotic tropical fruit, pineapple and grapefruit, with a buttery texture and aftertaste. Despite its size, this is extremely well-balanced and elegant, ending with a delicate mix of mineral and dried apricot.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Chardonnay Sangiacomo Green Acres Hill, made from an old Wente clone, exhibits abundant notes of brioche, lemon, citrus oil, poached pears, and honeysuckle as well as subtle spicy oak, and elegant, crisp acids buttressing a medium to full-bodied, beautifully concentrated wine displaying freshness as well as vigor. It should drink nicely for 4-5 years or longer. All of these Chardonnays see about 60% new French oak.
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.