Winemaker Notes
The 2004 Grand Reserve Chardonnay is lush and tropical with bright citrus notes and ripe apple flavors. Sur lie aged, and beautifully balanced, this Chardonnay is richly layered with elegance and a creamy texture enhanced from the gentle stirring of the lees. A delight for the senses.
This wine is particularly exceptional in that all the Chardonnay grapes were grown on vineyards that we own or control via a long-term lease or similar arrangement. Controlling our own vineyards ensures that our precision farming methods are used to manage our Grand Reserve blocks. We know that our grapes are handled with the utmost care and are harvested at the peak of their maximum potential.
Robert Parker of the Wine Advocate said that this Chardonnay is "a serious, unmistakably California Chardonnay exhibiting loads of honeyed tropical fruit, medium to full body, and admirable freshness as well as texture" and awarded this wine 91/100 points.
Professional Ratings
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.
The largest and perhaps most varied of California’s wine-growing regions, the Central Coast produces a good majority of the state's wine. This vast California wine district stretches from San Francisco all the way to Santa Barbara along the coast, and reaches inland nearly all the way to the Central Valley.
Encompassing an extremely diverse array of climates, soil types and wine styles, it contains many smaller sub-AVAs, including San Francisco Bay, Monterey, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Paso Robles, Edna Valley, Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria Valley.
While the Central Coast California wine region could probably support almost any major grape varietiy, it is famous for a few Central Coast reds and whites. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel are among the major ones. The Central Coast is home to many of the state's small, artisanal wineries crafting unique, high-quality wines, as well as larger producers also making exceptional wines.