Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Chardonnay Belle Cote, which I had tentatively rated 95 to 97, has turned out to be flirting with perfection. Production was nearly 1,000 cases less than the 2014! Displaying an almost stony liqueur of rocks, lemon butter, and white peach, this is a full-bodied, intense wine with loads of tangerine oil, pineapple jam and that wet stone minerality that runs through it. This extremely massive, rich, super-concentrated wine blew me away in my tasting at the winery. Drink it over the next decade.
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Wine Spectator
Oozing with complex flavors of honeydew, toasty oak, fig, apricot and tangerine, this is enlivened by snappy acidity and ends with a long, expansive flavor. Drink now through 2020.
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.