Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chardonnay Richard Dinner Vineyard sports vivacious tropical fruit notes of warm pineapple, green guava and mango with touches of baker’s yeast, cashew paste, pie crust and ginger. Medium to full-bodied, the palate reveals a cornucopia of tropical fruit flavors, restrained by plenty of savory accents and finishing with great freshness and depth
-
James Suckling
Soft and almost velvety with cooked apple, pie crust and hints of vanilla. Full body, juicy and savory. Shows potential.
Range:(93-94) -
Wine Spectator
Ultrarich and deeply extracted, this is potent and concentrated, with tiers of fig, anise, honeydew, apricot and apple, revealing a pithy tannic presence and a long finish. Drink now through 2021.
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.
Defined more by altitude than geographical outline, the Sonoma Mountain appellation occupies elevations between 400 and 1,200 feet on the northern and eastern slopes of the actual Sonoma Mountain and is part of the greater Sonoma Valley appellation. The mountain reaches 2,400 feet; its hills separate the cooling winds of Petaluma Gap from the Sonoma Valley.
On a cooler western flank, Pinot noir, Chardonnay and Syrah enjoy a great deal of success. Vineyards on its warmer, eastern side, interspersed with heavily forested areas, tend to include Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel, and Syrah. Given its complexity of topography and mesoclimates, Sonoma Mountain excels with a wide range of grape varieties.