Winemaker Notes
#98 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2022
The Ferren Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is a barrel select blend of all all the single vineyard Chardonnays. No less astounding in texture, depth or acidity, it is simply barrels that offer more in their youth and the tiniest touch less oak.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast has inviting aromas of baked quince, pie crust, roasted almonds, meringue, beeswax and lime peel. Medium-bodied, satiny and concentrated, it offers expansive flavors, seamless yet energetic acidity and a persistent, flavorful finish.
-
Wine Spectator
The salted butter, lemon bar, orange blossom and ripe melon flavors at the core of this white show generous purity and focus, with fresh acidity and with a hint of Himalayan salt on the long, expressive finish. The texture is smooth and lush, practically melting in your mouth. Drink now
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast is highly floral with honeysuckle, white peach, and a touch tropical green papaya. The palate is medium-bodied, with sweet honeydew melon fruit up front, vanilla, and sweet spice. Drink over the next ten years.
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.