Winemaker Notes
Kistler Chardonnays are fermented in the subterranean barrel chais, where the native yeast and various biological patinas rule the ecology. Hand stacked french cooperage that we purchase as wood and have air dry aged in St. Romain where it is crafted into barrels three years later, houses all of the wines.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Moving to the Russian River releases, the 2017 Chardonnay Tenton Roadhouse offers textbook Sonoma County notes of honeyed stone fruits, ripe orchard notes, hints of brioche, and even a kiss of minerality. Medium to full-bodied, rounded, and textured on the palate, it has good acidity, terrific balance, and a great finish. This is classic California Chardonnay that does everything right!
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Trenton Roadhouse, from vines planted in Goldridge soils, has a warm, open, savory nose of toasted almond, spring honey, crushed shell, warm white peaches and baked quince with an undercurrent of dried flowers and spices. Medium-bodied, it explodes in the mouth with intense, energetic, spice and earth-laced fruit layers strung with tangy acidity and finishes long, layered and full of verve.
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Decanter
This south-facing vineyard next to the Kistler tasting room in the Russian River Valley was planted in the mid-1990s; the wine became a vine designate in 2009. The famed Gold ridge soil is slightly sandier than the other RRV bottlings. This golden wine has a distinct mineral-earth-green mint character with a baked apple nuance like warm tarte tatin, plenty of depth and dimension and an appealing creamy richness
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Keyed on green apples with scattered suggestions of sweet lemons and hints of stony soil appearing throughout all set against a gentle background of oak, the 2017 Trenton Roadhouse Chardonnay is a sleek, medium-full-bodied, very linear working that pulls back a bit from obvious ripeness and is, withal, just a tad lighter and brighter when compared to its many cellarmates. It tends more to finesse than to unbridled richness yet in no way impresses as being spindly or undersized, and it will make lovely drinking now and for the next half-dozen or so years with more subtly flavored fare as opposed to dishes long on savor and spice
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.