Winemaker Notes
Pair this wine alongside grilled chicken, lobster, crab cakes, linguine with white clam sauce.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine offers incredible aromatics of crème brûlée and brioche, rich, warming characteristics that lead to more mineral driven elements of oyster shell and stone. From several parts of the producer’s estate, including Little Hill and River Block, this is a juicy, lengthy and beautifully structured wine finishing in a swirl of grilled pineapple.”
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Jeb Dunnuck
Readers looking for a classic Russian River Chardonnay that has the textbook richness of the appellation yet stays fresh and vibrant will love the 2018 Chardonnay Russian River Valley. Coming from a mix of the single vineyards and aged 8 months in French oak, its lighter gold color is followed by a great nose of buttered pineapple, tart citrus, white flowers, and a kiss of honeysuckle. It's aromatic, has great purity, is medium-bodied, and finishes with bright acidity. In short, it's a terrific Chardonnay that will evolve for 5-7 years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chardonnay Estate opens bright and fresh with scents of chamomile, quince, dried green herbs, baker’s yeast and a stony note. Light to medium-bodied, it’s bright and lifted in the mouth with fresh fruit character, a silken texture and uplifted 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.