Winemaker Notes
There is real refinement and complexity in the 2021 Estate Chardonnay. It drinks beautifully now but will come into its own in a year or two as youthful aromas coalesce and become harmonious. Aromas of mint, coconut/lime juice, roasted lemon, and crème brulée carry seamlessly across the palate. The mouthfeel straddles a line between silky and intense; a feature that has become a hallmark of Peay Chardonnay. Simply delicious.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
From 23-year-old vines, the 2021 Chardonnay Estate pours a bright straw hue and takes on more aromatic intensity, with gravelly earth, beeswax, lime leaf, and fresh apple. It offers fantastic intensity and energy on the palate, with linear feel, and is medium to full bodied. Revealing delicate oak spices and crunchy saline minerals on the finish, it’s mouthwatering for ages. This is one of the best Chardonnays I’ve tasted. Drink it over the next 10-12 years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Chardonnay Estate has intense aromas of yellow apple, pastry, dried hay and almonds. The light-bodied palate begins with shimmery acidity and rocky tones before fleshing out to creamier, biscuity notes that accent its concentrated fruit, and it has a powerful, expansive finish that calls you back to the glass. This is 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 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.