Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2004 Chardonnay Hudson Vineyard seems to be on a faster evolutionary track than the other wines. Light gold in color with notes of marmalade, smoky hazelnuts, and tropical fruit, and a lusty, rich, full-bodied palate that offers delicious drinking now, it should age well for several more years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Spectacularly ripe, showing an explosion of near-perfect fruit and smoky oak, balanced by crisply elegant acidity. Among the top ranks of Carneros Chards, the wine comes from manicured, low-yielding vines that, in this warm vintage, offer pineapple custard, lemon meringue, kiwi, creme brulee and vanilla spice flavors. There's something keenly firm and stony in the finish.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe, floral aromas give off a perfumed, grapey quality, with ripe apple, melon, pear and light cedary oak. Complex and concentrated, this should get smoother in the next year.
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.
Known for elegant wines that combine power and finesse, Carneros is set in the rolling hills that straddle the southernmost parts of both Sonoma and Napa counties. The cooling winds from the abutting San Pablo Bay, combined with lots of midday California sunshine, create an ideal environment for producing wines with a perfect balance of crisp acidity and well-ripened fruit.
This cooler pocket of California lends itself to growing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah. Carneros is an important source of sparkling wines made in the style of Champagne as well.