Winemaker Notes
This special hillside vineyard planted to the Mt. Eden field selection. This wine has the classic mineral and apple aromas with a touch of roasted almond and stone. Much like a grand cru white burgundy, this wine has rich and sweet flavors with a firm structure and crisp acidity which allows for long aging.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Produced from the Eden Clone, the 2016 Chardonnay Rachael's Vineyard reveals super intense tropical fruit notes of under-ripe pineapple and pink guava with hints of baking spices, acacia honey, beeswax, almond paste and a waft of peach blossoms. Medium to full-bodied and seductively spicy spicy in the mouth, it is both bold and exotic with fantastic vivacity and very long and layered 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.