Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Full-blown, mature Chardonnay at its peak, layered and complex, unfolding with anise, smoky oak, roasted fig, apricot and honeysuckle flavors. What makes this sing is the richness and proportionality of the flavors. Lingers and gains on the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Year in and year out, the Chardonnay Marcassin Estate is one of the two or three most profound Chardonnays made in California, and a wine that could dominate any tasting of white Burgundies. The 2009 offers up notes of honeysuckle, citrus oil, tangerines, white peach and wet gravel followed by a wine with a full-bodied mouthfeel and zesty acidity. It should evolve for 10-15 years. Both 2009 and 2010 were cool years, and both were eclipsed in coldness by 2011. I still have their vintages from the nineties, both the first Estate bottlings and of course wines they made from vineyards such as the Upper Barn-Gauer (now owned by Kendall-Jackson) and the Lorenzo Vineyard from the mid-nineties that are still in fabulous conditions. So there is an argument to be made that Marcassin along with Mt. Eden and the old Chalones from the seventies and early eighties are examples of the longest-lived Chardonnays ever produced in California.
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Vinous
The 2012 Chardonnay Maracassin Vineyard, from the estate vineyard in Fort Ross-Seaview, is peaking today. Soft, open-knit and engaging, the 2012 caresses the palate with hints of dried apricot, chamomile, crushed flowers and almond. For my palate, the 2012 is a touch beyond where I find the most pleasure in wine. Specifically, the mid-palate has started to fade and that in turn pushes the oak forward, especially texturally, where there is some dryness on the finish.
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.