Winemaker Notes
The wine is full-bodied and focused on the palate, displaying depth, bright acidity, fine balance, and grip, with a long, lively, and complex finish, while its 12.8 percent alcohol ensures it is elegant and immediately enjoyable.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This Chardonnay packs bags of flavor yet maintains a light, delicate nature through and through. Initial aromas speak of wet-stone minerality, lemon, lime, kiwi and star fruit, alongside a lily-of-the-valley floral note. The palate adds to those layers with tones of white peach, lime leaf and lemongrass. Sinewy acidity rides a firm, lean line through the center of this medium-bodied white. The finish lingers and begs for another sip.
Editors' Choice -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Chardonnay Anderson Valley, formerly bottled as Alesia, is a more weighty, exotic offering than its Santa Cruz Mountains counterpart. Aromas of ripe orchard and stone fruits with citrus zest dominate the nose, leading to a tender, pleasant and robust palate. Clean, vibrant and balanced on the finish, this is ready to be enjoyed now but will surely do well in the cellar.
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Wine Spectator
Shows wonderful transparency and energy, offering juicy and vibrant flavors of lemon zest, Honeycrisp apple and tangerine, with jasmine tea, lemon balm and orange blossom hints.
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.
Surrounded by redwood forests and often blanketed in chilly, ocean fog, the Anderson Valley is one of California’s most picturesque appellations. During the growing season, moist, cool, late afternoon air flows in from the Pacific Ocean along the Navarro River and over the valley's golden, oak-studded hills. High and low temperatures can vary as much as 40 or 50 degrees within a single day, allowing for slow and gentle ripening of grapes, which will in turn create elegantly balanced wines.
The Anderson Valley is best known for Pinot Noir made in a range of styles from delicate and floral to powerful and concentrated. Chardonnay also shines here, and both varieties are often utilized for the production of some of California’s best traditional method sparkling wines. The region also draws inspiration from Alsace and produces excellent Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris.