Winemaker Notes
Pure, with bright lemon zest, honeysuckle, cantaloupe and notes of brioche. Precise and intentional entry with a lively energetic mid-palate, focused acidity and a round, nimble weight.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
All barrel fermented and brought up in just under 40% new French oak, the 2018 Chardonnay One Sixteen has a big bouquet of buttered lemons, peach, tart pineapple, spice, and toasted bread. Beautifully textured, elegant, and seamless on the palate, with both good acidity and concentration, it's another beautiful wine from this team. I think the El Diablo Vineyard will be longer-lived (and maybe have more upside), but this is brilliant.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Kosta Browne One-Sixteen Chardonnay is in a class of its own. TASTING NOTES: This wine exhibits aromas and flavors of savory spices, dead leaves, and ripe fruit. Enjoy its generous textures and a long finish with shellfish in cream sauce. (Tasted: June 13, 2020, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chardonnay One Sixteen comes from six or seven different vineyards throughout the Russian River Valley. It has a soft nose of baker’s yeast, apricot, spring honey and white blossoms with a gently nutty undercurrent. The palate is medium-bodied and silky with a good blend of savory flavor and tangy uplift, finishing long and layered.
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.