Winemaker Notes
With its spine of sappy brightness and crystalline salinity, this wine displays all the dense, bright, and savory appeal of the Sonoma Coast. At once textural and filigreed, this is a laser focused expression showing citrus, coastal bay and a textural depth to carry the mid-palate to a refreshing finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
A sunny chardonnay saturated with flavors of yellow plum, lemon and corn silk, this wine’s smooth richness is finely modulated. The salty citrus and hazelnut notes reminded Associate Editor Karen Moneymaker of the agnolotti at LA’s Spago, sometimes stuffed with sweet corn, sometimes with chestnuts in brown butter—and the wine would work with either version. Best Buy
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Jeb Dunnuck
Made in relatively good quantities, the 2017 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast is a beautiful, medium-bodied, charming effort that’s loaded with notions of apple blossom, honeysuckle, spice, and just a touch of minerality. It has terrific purity of fruit and is a gem of a wine to enjoy over the coming 4-6 years or so. It’s also a great introduction to the style of the estate.
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.