Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
In the same ballpark, the 2017 Chardonnay Durell comes from a Sonoma Coast site and is a richer, fuller Chardonnay that offers lots of lemon curd, pineapple, and some orchard fruits as well as a kiss of smoky minerality. Medium-bodied, nicely textured, and beautifully balanced, the wine builds with time in the glass, displaying a beautiful mid-palate and a great finish. While it’s one of the richer wines in the lineup, it’s firmly in the new, racy, crisp style of the estate.
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Wine Spectator
The effusively rich and spicy apple, pear and ripe melon flavors show amazing clarity, loaded with plush spiciness. Notes of dried mango and pineapple emerge midpalate, with a long, lush and buttery finish. Hard to resist. Drink now through 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Durell Vineyard opens with lemon curd, toast, dried hay and baked quince scents with notions of pie crust, baked yellow apple and honey notions. Medium-bodied, it has an intense core of open-knit, honey-tinged fruits with toasty and mineral accents enlivened by tangy acidity, finishing long and layered.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Full and well-ripened with a creamy oak overlay to its mix of apples and Asian pears, this ample Chardonnay starts out on a slightly rounded note on entry then, in mid-palate, displays the firmer structure shared by all of its siblings and is a tailored wine of measured richness and fine fruity vigor rather than one that opts for full-bore sweet extravagance. It is balanced to be around for a fairly long time and will definitely reward further age, yet it is not so tight or backward as to warn off near-term drinking and is showing splendidly right now.
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.
Home to a diverse array of smaller AVAs with varied microclimates and soil types, Sonoma County has something for every wine lover. Physically twice as large as Napa Valley, the region only produces about half the amount of wine but boasts both tremendous quality and variety. With its laid-back atmosphere and down-to-earth attitude, the wineries of Sonoma are appreciated by wine tourists for their friendliness and approachability. The entire county intends to become a 100% sustainable winegrowing region by 2019.
Sonoma County wines are produced with carefully selected grape varieties to reflect the best attributes of their sites—Dry Creek Valley’s consistent sunshine is ideal for Zinfandel, while the warm Alexander Valley is responsible for rich, voluptuous red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are important throughout the county, most notably in the cooler AVAs of Russian River, Sonoma Coast and Carneros. Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Syrah have also found a firm footing here.