Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Chardonnay Durell Vineyard sports a sophisticated nose of lemon curd, honey toast, marzipan and chalk dust plus a waft of peaches and cream. Medium-bodied, elegantly styled and packed with stone fruit and creamy flavors, it has a lovely suggestion of silkiness to the texture and a long finish with spicy notions coming through.
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Wine Enthusiast
From the tremendous site overlooking Sonoma Valley, this is a creamy, lushly crafted white, with a freshness of tangy lemon meringue, pear and orange at its core. Salty vanilla and toasted oak give it some richness and concentration while remaining balanced and bright.
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Wine Spectator
Spicy, with cedary, vanilla-laced oak that adds flavor to the core of melon and green apple. Gains depth and length.
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.