Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A rich golden color, this unctuous offering is luxuriously layered in honeycomb and vanilla crème brûlée, complex, big and bold. A wall of oak adds structure and density without taking over, opening the door to a finish of juicy ripe fig.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Revealing a creamier texture as well as slightly more color with a green hue, the 2013 Chardonnay Sangiacomo Vineyard reveals more peach marmalade, brioche and crème brûlée notes. Thirty percent new oak was used in this ripe, fleshy, tropical fruit-styled white. Bigger and heavier than the generic Sonoma Coast offering, it should drink well for 4-5 years.
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Wine Spectator
Offers a taut array of pithy citrus, green apple, flinty rock and zesty lime flavors. The delicacy and finesse are impressive, maintaining the wine's personality.
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.