Winemaker Notes
The 2017 Estero is a joyous, agreeable wine with slightly rounder curves that promise immediate drinkability. That perennial spine of ocean-born acidity keeps the wine honest, but it is wrapped in juicy layers of preserved lemons, just-ripe green pears, and marzipan.
Chill, pop, and pair with razor clams or spot prawns Scampi-style!
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2017 Lioco Estero Chardonnay is bright and distinctive. TASTING NOTES: This wine delivers what it promises in the nose. Its brisk and fine aromas and flavors of savory spices, dried earth, and peach skin bring a smile to my palate. Pair it with longneck clams in a piquant ginger, onion, light soy sauce. (Tasted: August 19, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Estero offers baked red apples, petrichor, sliced hazelnuts, quince paste and white flower hints. It's light to medium-bodied with a good core of nutty fruit accented by honey touches, with seamless acidity and a long, textured finish. This was barrel fermented with wild yeasts in 600-liter puncheons with full malolactic but no bâtonnage this vintage. Very easy to drink!
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.