Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Hidden within its oak, there's a clean, fresh intensity to this wine that shows in the lasting flavor. Decant this if you open it now, allowing the oak to transform into a toasted hazelnut scent, itself melting into the succulent pear and apple raciness of the wine. The light green-apple color and impressive depth of flavor suggest long development ahead in the cellar.
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Wine Enthusiast
This isn't a long-term ager, but do give it about a year in the bottle to let all of its parts meld together. Right now, it’s tight and oaky. It features intense, bright pineapple, green apple and orange flavors, with sweet barrel influences and a tenuous streak of acidity.
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Wine Spectator
Shows the traits of a young, just-bottled wine, displaying heavy, leesy, toasty oak and malolactic richness, with fig, smoke and apricot notes. Straightens out on the 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.