Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This used to be a single-vineyard wine, winemaker Jeffrey Patterson says of the Edna Valley Chardonnay. "In 2016, 40% of the fruit came from the Wolf vineyard and 60% from vineyards in the middle of Edna Valley. We will be back with the Wolf vineyard in 2018," he explains, so expect to see the Wolf Vineyard Chardonnay bottled on its own again from that vintage. The 2016 Edna Valley Chardonnay is scented of baked Red Delicious apple, quince and red pear with dried flowers, lemon cream, stone, hints of clover honey, hay and peach fruit at the core. Medium-bodied, it has a good core of savory flavor layers and great juicy acidity, finishing long.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Chardonnay Edna Valley is also terrific, with a slightly more layered, textured style and less minerality than the Santa Cruz Chardonnay. Ripe orchard fruits, some tropical notes, background oak, and a medium-bodied, rich, balanced texture all make for a terrific cool climate Chardonnay to drink over the coming 7-8 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
This Santa Cruz Mountains-based winery has been making a value-driven Edna Valley Chardonnay since 1985, and this one does not disappoint, Pungent aromas of lemon oil and orange pith are rounded by seared white peach, crushed sand and smoke on the nose, while the zesty palate delivers more stone fruit, bright lemon, toasty oak and solid tannic tension.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Rich without going over-the-top, the 2016 Mount Eden Vineyards Edna Valley Chardonnay succeeds where so many others fail. TASTING NOTES: This wine, made with full malolactic, shows excellent balance and style. Its aromas and flavors of mineral and green apples work well together and should pair nicely with a grilled chicken salad. (Tasted: August 20, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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Decanter
Lush and opulent with tropical fruit character, yet still citrussy and zingy, offering a fair bit of complexity. From a 22ha Chardonnay vineyard on the Central Coast, just outside San Luis Obispo, this wine is pressed without crushing and then barrel-fermented.
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.
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.