Winemaker Notes
#22 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2025
The 2022 offering is a collection of twenty three single-vineyard quality sites that could all be bottled as single source bottlings; six blocks of Dutton Ranch, various blocks of Sanchietti Vineyard, Gap’s Crown Vineyard, Zio Tony Ranch, Parmelee-Hill Vineyard, Alder Springs and Durell Vineyard. Fresh fruit abounds in this bottling, with aromas of granny smith apple, orange spritz and bosque pear caressing the senses. Succulent acidity along with a wet rock minerality bestows elegance on the palate and makes this a wine to refresh the spirit on a warm summer day.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Ripe, succulent peach, apricot and mango flavors are generous and juicy, with notes of toasted coconut, crème anglaise, tangerine and orange blossoms, plus a drizzle of wildflower honey. The intensity persists on the finish, with hints of shortbread and grilled pineapple that linger.
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James Suckling
Aromas of golden apples, pears, butterscotch, hazelnuts and lemon cream. On the palate, flavors of candied citrus, caramel and green apples. A stylized yet polished wine. Medium-bodied.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A bright straw/yellow color, the 2022 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast is a ripe and aromatic offering with aromas of lemon curd, honeysuckle, wet stones, and melon rind. It offers medium to full-bodied richness, with a rounded and delicately creamy texture, a nice, even lift of fresh acidity, and a subtle flourish of saline. It’s a charming and well-detailed wine from this warm vintage that will likely show its best
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.