Winemaker Notes
Crystal clear with lemon yellow hues. Expressive aromas overflow the glass with pears, pineapple, and apple blossom. On the palate, this wine displays a silky texture that glides across the mouth seamlessly intertwining flavors of pineapple, honeydew melon, and early season nectarines with more savory notes of Gravenstein apples and cut hay. There is a creamy almost almond-like note underlying the high fruit flavors, providing depth and complexity on the finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2017 Pellet Estate Chardonnay is impressive from start to finish. TASTING NOTES: This wine excels with aromas and flavors of chalk, ripe fruit, and oak. Serve it with steamed and roasted Dungeness crab in a savory sauce. (Tasted: March 3, 2022, San Francisco, CA)
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James Suckling
This has a wealth of grilled hazelnuts and vanilla nougat with ripe peaches in behind. The palate has a vibrant and smooth delivery of fresh-peach and waffle-cone flavors. Drink or hold.
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.
Home to a diverse array of smaller AVAs with varied microclimates and soil types, Sonoma County has something for every wine lover. Physically twice as large as Napa Valley, the region only produces about half the amount of wine but boasts both tremendous quality and variety. With its laid-back atmosphere and down-to-earth attitude, the wineries of Sonoma are appreciated by wine tourists for their friendliness and approachability. The entire county intends to become a 100% sustainable winegrowing region by 2019.
Sonoma County wines are produced with carefully selected grape varieties to reflect the best attributes of their sites—Dry Creek Valley’s consistent sunshine is ideal for Zinfandel, while the warm Alexander Valley is responsible for rich, voluptuous red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are important throughout the county, most notably in the cooler AVAs of Russian River, Sonoma Coast and Carneros. Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Syrah have also found a firm footing here.