Winemaker Notes
Graceful, pure and polished, this enticing Chardonnay offers tantalizing aromas of green apple, nectarine, and candied citrus, with fragrant hints of roasted nuts and acacia blossoms. On the palate, it is rich and lushly textured, with a flowing elegance that frames the fresh citrus and stone fruit flavors, while carrying the wine to a long, silky finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Ripe pear and sweet honeysuckle scents play with this wine’s cool, zesty feel, pointing its acidity at the creamy richness of an oyster pan roast. Half of the wine ferments in French oak, half in stainless steel, sustaining the fruit’s briskness.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2020 Decoy Limited Sonoma Coast offers excellent richness at this price. TASTING NOTES: This wine exhibits aromas and flavors of sandalwood, dried fruit, and a slight oakiness. Enjoy it with oven-roasted chicken. (Tasted: November 6, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
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.