Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chardonnay Sangiacomo Vineyard displays subtle notes of ripe apricots, musk melon and orange blossoms with hints of marzipan and brioche. Medium-bodied, satiny textured and elegantly crafted on the palate, it has a lively backbone of freshness cutting through the concentrated stone fruit and yeasty flavors, finishing long and savory.
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Wine Enthusiast
Salty on the palate, this medium-bodied wine is focused in tension and nervy freshness, with a generosity of complex fruit. Lime, pear and fig ride a cool-climate wave of orange peel that lifts the underlying density and concentration at work in this vintage.
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.