Winemaker Notes
A bright canary yellow wine with clear and luscious golden hues. The fruit notes are reminiscent of Asian pears and loquats with hints of sour unripe pineapples. The minerality is also up-front with nuances of ocean air, wet sands, and oyster shells. For Burgundy lovers, this Chardonnay has the subtlety of flavors and exuberance of acidity and terroir.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast is fragrant and savory with aromas of fresh pear, sea spray, and lime. It has medium body and a soft, stony mouthfeel, with green apple, beeswax, and chive. This has a Chablis-like application that I love. Drink it over the next 7-8 years.
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Vinous
The 2021 Chardonnay (Sonoma Coast) is a beautiful appellation-level wine. Soft and open-knit, with lovely brightness, the Sonoma Coast Chardonnay offers a fine expression of the house style. Lemon confit, almond, dried flowers and chamomile open in a Chardonnay that offers terrific textural richness while remaining very much on the understated side of things. Best After 2023
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.
The largest and perhaps most varied of California’s wine-growing regions, the Central Coast produces a good majority of the state's wine. This vast California wine district stretches from San Francisco all the way to Santa Barbara along the coast, and reaches inland nearly all the way to the Central Valley.
Encompassing an extremely diverse array of climates, soil types and wine styles, it contains many smaller sub-AVAs, including San Francisco Bay, Monterey, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Paso Robles, Edna Valley, Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria Valley.
While the Central Coast California wine region could probably support almost any major grape varietiy, it is famous for a few Central Coast reds and whites. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel are among the major ones. The Central Coast is home to many of the state's small, artisanal wineries crafting unique, high-quality wines, as well as larger producers also making exceptional wines.