Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Long-time readers of this magazine will not be surprised that I love this wine. When it comes to chardonnay, Flowers’s Sonoma Coast bottling consistently delivers a fresh, fragrant, silken, mouthwatering wine. The freshness in the 2009 tastes real, the tension of the acidity captures the briskness of the far coast (70 percent of the blend in this vintage). The texture and flavor are woven together into a soft cushion of white raspberry, tart lime, white flowers, silk and down. Designed to drink rather than to impress, there’s nothing challenging about it.
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.