Winemaker Notes
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.
Famous in the Loire and throughout the world for perfumed Sauvignon blanc, Pouilly-Fume sits due east, across the Loire River from Sancerre. Limestone soils with clay and flint (also called silex) contribute to the wines' freshness and often times smoky, flinty, mineral character.