Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Starting with the 2017 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast, this comes from a mix of the single vineyards and spent 12 months in 20% new French oak followed by six months in stainless steel. Offering a vivid gold hue as well as a youthful, unevolved bouquet of caramelized citrus, brioche, white flowers, acacia flowers, and a touch of salinity, it's balanced, medium to full-bodied, and concentrated on the palate. This is a classic 2017 with its firm, focused, edgy, concentrated style. Give bottles another 6-12 months and enjoy over the following 7-8 years.
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Wine Spectator
Buttery, yet balanced by a lithe freshness and filled with apple pastry, pear tart and quince paste flavors, loaded with spicy richness. The finish turns unctuous and creamy, showing powerful toasty accents. Drink now through 2025.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast has intense, open-knit aromas of white peaches, quince paste, dried hay, almonds and honeycomb. It’s medium-bodied, concentrated and powerful, silky and fresh with a long finish and good balance of savory and yeasty touches accenting the fruit.
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.