Winemaker Notes
The 2018 Sonoma Coast vintage offered moderate weather, cool evening
temperatures and a long, even growing season. The weather conditions were ideal and allowed the grapes to ripen slowly and evenly over the course of summer and early fall. This allowed the grapes to gain flavor complexities and ripe tannins, while retaining natural acidity. The vineyards ofered grapes of exceptional quality and high yields alike. This wine displays outstanding energy on the palate, with citrus and stone fruits and a long, clean finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chardonnay Durell Vineyard offers slowly blooming scents of white peaches, baklava and loads of white flower aromas. The medium-bodied palate surprises, exploding into an array of concentrated, savory, honeyed flavors with bright freshness and a very long finish. Yum!
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Wine Spectator
Sleek and rich, featuring concentrated McIntosh apple, pear tart and honeydew melon flavors, with creamy nuances. Light buttery notes fill the lusciously spiced 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 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.