Winemaker Notes
This is our first single vineyard Chardonnay from this historic vineyard. We’ve enjoyed a wonderful relationship with the Rochioli family for years and are excited to produce this elegant and fruit-driven wine from our neighbor’s vineyard on Westside Road
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The finest white in the lineup is the 2015 Chardonnay Rochioli Vineyard. More crystalline, salty, and toasty, with beautiful orchard fruits, this rockstar effort tastes like a great Montrachet. With full body, beautiful concentration, vibrant acidity, and a great, great finish, drink it anytime over the coming 10-15 years
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Wine Enthusiast
This is such a beautiful wine, incorporating blocks from the nearby Allen Vineyard, also farmed by the Rochiolis. Reduced nicely on the nose, it's lemony with a great core of juicy acidity around grainy, gravelly texture and minerality. With an exotic edge, it finishes elegantly in lemon peel and orange blossom.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chardonnay Rochioli Vineyard has a compelling baking spice and floral perfume on the nose with a core of warm peaches, pink grapefruit and honey-lemons plus a waft of orange blossoms. Medium to full-bodied and very tightly wound in the mouth, it has a racy line cutting through the densely packed citrus and stone fruit flavors, finishing long and fragrant.
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Decanter
This is the first vintage of this wine, made using grapes from the historic Rochioli vineyard on Yolo loam soils, plus a tiny bit from the Allen Vineyard, which the Rochiolis also farm. Most of the grapes come from vines that are more than 20 years old. The wine has a very rich, deep, fruity character with super-refined elegance and a long finish.
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.