Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Chardonnay Silver Eagle Vineyard is another Sonoma Coast wine from winemaker Matt Courtney that spent a year in one-third new French oak followed by six months in tank. It's a rich, fleshy, flamboyant beauty that's loaded with notions of white currants, toasted spice, honeyed pineapple, and white flowers. With full body, moderate acidity, and a huge, fleshy, layered texture, it's a powerhouse that’s going to drink brilliantly for 5-7 years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Silver Eagle Vineyard is owned and farmed by Ulises Valdez. The 2016 Chardonnay Silver Eagle Vineyard has a gorgeous nose of honeycomb and beeswax, crushed stone, toasted hazelnut and lime peel with a core of Golden Delicious, quince, apricot and peach. Medium to full-bodied and intensely flavorful in the mouth, it's balanced by very juicy acidity and a touch of texture, finishing very long, honeyed and layered. Yum!
Rating: 95+ -
Wine Spectator
Elegant, with seductive creaminess wrapped around juicy Gala apple, Asian pear and quince flavors. The finely textured finish is richly spiced and unctuous. Drink now through 2025.
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.