Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Golden stony apple opens this full-bodied wine, robust in structure and tannin. Youthful oak gives it a toasty quality that works with the expressive, expansive fruit, finishing with a lasting succulence and touches of nutmeg and Meyer lemon.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast opens fresh and clean, with delicate aromas of white blossoms, cashews, crushed stone, pure apples and honey-oat notes in the background. In the mouth, the wine has a medium weight and satisfying fruit intensity with juicy freshness and a long, nutty finish.
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Wine Spectator
Light smoky notes accent the luscious dried white fruit, melon and quince flavors, which are loaded with exotic spiciness in this white. The finish offers butterscotch hints. Drink now through 2022.
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.