Winemaker Notes
Aromatically the wine is extremely fruit-forward with guava, white peaches, butter, and lemon curd. On the palate, the wine is full of ripe fruits, notes of fine baking spices, and piles of minerality.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard, harvested August 13 and 19, is deep and savory, with gregarious aromas of apple pie, beeswax, roasted almonds and flinty streaks. Full-bodied and concentrated, the palate is balanced by bright acidity and it has a long, layered finish. It’s drinking beautifully already with all its savory exuberance.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The straw-colored 2020 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard offers up expressive aromas of white flowers, lemon curd, baked apple, and ripe fresh fruit. Full-bodied and rounded, it has an opulent feel although it’s all in balance and has clean lift as well as a ripe, creamy texture, with notes of orange custard and fresh apricot.
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Wine Enthusiast
This full-bodied wine offers enticing oak spices and an equally vivid mouthfeel enhanced by fresh acidity and a medium to full body. Aromas of toasted oak and lemon butter lead to vivid and crisp pear and pineapple flavors that build as you sip and linger on the finish.
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Wine Spectator
Stunning, persistent and intense, with a core of lemon curd and lemon zest, peppery white flower accents and a thread of minerality. Features fresh Honeycrisp apple and dried tarragon, with a hint of salted butter that lingers, but the focus is on freshness, crisp structure and a transparency that lingers on the long finish. Drink now through 2032.
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 standout region for its decidedly Californian take on Burgundian varieties, the Russian River Valley is named for the eponymous river that flows through it. While there are warm pockets of the AVA, it is mostly a cool-climate growing region thanks to breezes and fog from the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir reign supreme in Russian River, with the best examples demonstrating a unique combination of richness and restraint. The cool weather makes Russian River an ideal AVA for sparkling wine production, utilizing the aforementioned varieties. Zinfandel also performs exceptionally well here. Within the Russian River Valley lie the smaller appellations of Chalk Hill and Green Valley. The former, farther from the ocean, is relatively warm, with a focus on red and white Bordeaux varieties. The latter is the coolest, foggiest parcel of the Russian River Valley and is responsible for outstanding Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.