Winemaker Notes
The Dutton Ranch Chardonnay is a wine of precision, with focused, structural acids layered through a body of delicate orchard fruit tones and overlaid with roasted grain.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
I loved the 2017 Chardonnay Dutton Ranch. This Russian River site has turned out a textbook Chardonnay that offers tons of stone and orchard fruits, white flowers, and a kiss of salty minerality. It’s beautifully balanced on the palate, has high yet integrated acidity, a terrific sense of elegance, and is another release from this team that’s impossible to fault. As with most of these releases, I suspect a year of bottle age will do it well.
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Wine Spectator
Pure and precise, with a lithe blend of intense white fruit and minerality, backed by juicy acidity. The vibrant finish is filled with lemongrass notes and long, powerful hints of savory herb. Drink now through 2026.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Scented of gunflint, toast and petrichor to begin, the 2017 Chardonnay Dutton Ranch, grown in Goldridge soils, fleshes out slowly to savory notions of baked apple, pie crust, spring honey, lemon curd, dried leaves and quince peel. Medium-bodied, rounded and textured with savory layers, it's lifted by juicy acidity and finishes long. I suspect this needs more time in bottle to flesh out and give all it's got. Rating: 93+
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Make no mistake, this is a very good and accessible Chardonnay, yet, in the company of its mates, it is a tad lesser in reach. It is at once juicy and deftly oaked with a muted minerally presence, and, though its relatively forthright nature is hardly a liability, it lays its cards face up on the table and does not have quite the same sense of breadth and inklings of yet-to-be-revealed depth. Certain to keep for no fewer than four or five years, but wholly likeable now, it is the one of its 2017 family that we would choose first for drinking in the near term
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 standout region for its decidedly Californian take on Burgundian varieties, the Russian River Valley is named for the eponymous river that flows through it. While there are warm pockets of the AVA, it is mostly a cool-climate growing region thanks to breezes and fog from the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir reign supreme in Russian River, with the best examples demonstrating a unique combination of richness and restraint. The cool weather makes Russian River an ideal AVA for sparkling wine production, utilizing the aforementioned varieties. Zinfandel also performs exceptionally well here. Within the Russian River Valley lie the smaller appellations of Chalk Hill and Green Valley. The former, farther from the ocean, is relatively warm, with a focus on red and white Bordeaux varieties. The latter is the coolest, foggiest parcel of the Russian River Valley and is responsible for outstanding Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.