Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chardonnay Grand Reserve is a coastal cuvée from the Jackson holdings in Monterey and Santa Barbara. A hundred percent barrel-fermented for eight months, this wine emerges primarily from Dijon and Rued Chardonnay clones. Loads of tropical fruits like pineapple, mango and guava are present in the aromatics of this rich, zesty, luxurious style of Chardonnay, which offers a boatload of fruit in a somewhat dramatic, in-your-face style. There’s plenty of it (153,000 cases) and the price is irresistible. Drink it over the next several years.
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Wine Enthusiast
The Jackson family has mastered making Chardonnay in large quantities at fair price points, and this bottling fits that theme perfectly. Soft white peach, sea salt, brown butter and guava aromas lead into a palate that’s tightly wound with apricot, pan-seared apple and salty smoke flavors. Editors’ Choice.
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.