Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This site was planted in 1972 to Old Wente clone selection. The vines are all head-trained and dry grown. The 2015 Chardonnay Buena Tierra Vineyard gives up evolving fruit notions of preserved apricots, fresh hay, apple pie and allspice with touches of lemongrass and lime leaves. Full-bodied, the palate is packed with savory and baking spices accents with a stone fruit and baked apple core, framed by great freshness and a tantalizing oiliness to the texture, finishing long and spicy. Skillfully crafted by Thomas Rivers Brown, this is more of an old-old-school, oxidative style of Chardonnay and therefore wonderfully restrained and savory—not for those looking for a fruit bomb!
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Wine Spectator
Fresh and vibrant, with a snappy edge to the green apple, pear and honeydew melon flavors that dance on the palate, ending long and clean.
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.