Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Chardonnay Stone Côte is actually a tiny parcel within the more famous and larger Durell Vineyard. Like most of these wines, indigenous yeast fermentations are encouraged, and the wine is 100% barrel-fermented and aged completely in French oak with the percentage of new oak generally ranging from the upper 30 percentile to 50% or so. This wine is a terrific example of Chardonnay, with a greenish hue to its light straw color and a stunning nose of tropical fruit, citrus oil and orange blossom. It is full-bodied, has great acidity and delicious up-front fruit. This will be a killer Chardonnay when released next year.
Barrel Sample: 95-97
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.