Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Combining estate grapes from both Roberts Road and Green Acres vineyards, this showcases the coast well in its firmness of structure and high-toned acidity. Starting off somewhat reduced on the nose, it opens slowly to reveal layers of Meyer lemon, melon and green apple, with a richer back note of baked peach
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast is a blend of fruit from the Roberts Road and Green Acres vineyards harvested September 2, 4 and 25. It was barrel fermented and aged 10 months in 25% new French oak. It opens with notes of toast, gunflint and nutty notions over dried hay, red apple, crushed stone and notes of charcuterie. This wine is driven by those savory, nutty notions rather than fruit. The palate is medium-bodied, silky, toasty and lively, framed by juicy acidity and finishing long and savory.
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Wine & Spirits
Oak dominates when this wine is first poured, taking the fruit in the direction of bacon smoke and roast butternut squash. After some exposure to air, the wine feels meaty and superrich, with lasting cumin spice and nutmeat flavors. There’s more than just oak saturation, and the details might be more apparent in the company of salmon rillettes.
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 vast appellation covering Sonoma County’s Pacific coastline, the Sonoma Coast AVA runs all the way from the Mendocino County border, south to the San Pablo Bay. The region can actually be divided into two sections—the actual coastal vineyards, marked by marine soils, cool temperatures and saline ocean breezes—and the warmer, drier vineyards further inland, which are still heavily influenced by the Pacific but not quite with same intensity.
Contained within the appellation are the much smaller Fort Ross-Seaview and Petaluma Gap AVAs.
The Sonoma Coast is highly regarded for elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, increasingly, cool-climate Syrah. The wines have high acidity, moderate alcohol, firm tannin, and balanced ripeness.