Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Some of the most distinctive California Chardonnays hail from the Sonoma Coast AVA, and this is especially true when the grapes come from the better locations in the spread-out and diverse area. The 2014 Red Car Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is one a superb effort. TASTING NOTES: This wine is lively, textured, and lasting. Pair its aromas and flavors of dried peach, core fruits, and lively minerality with pan-seared flounder. (Tasted: May 21, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
Velvety smooth in sublime flavors of green apple and toasted oak, this wine takes a light approach to ripeness, allowing for the tart pineapple fruit to speak quietly around an acid-driven core.
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 vast appellation covering Sonoma County’s Pacific coastline, the Sonoma Coast AVA runs all the way from the Mendocino County border, south to the San Pablo Bay. The region can actually be divided into two sections—the actual coastal vineyards, marked by marine soils, cool temperatures and saline ocean breezes—and the warmer, drier vineyards further inland, which are still heavily influenced by the Pacific but not quite with same intensity.
Contained within the appellation are the much smaller Fort Ross-Seaview and Petaluma Gap AVAs.
The Sonoma Coast is highly regarded for elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, increasingly, cool-climate Syrah. The wines have high acidity, moderate alcohol, firm tannin, and balanced ripeness.