Winemaker Notes
Enjoy this classic Chardonnay with light seafood fares, such as steamed mussels or Dungeness crab.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Daffodils, lemon rinds and yellow apples rise on the nose of this bottling like a delicate flower petal. The palate is also finely toned, light in style and easy to enjoy, with hints of limestone, sea salt, Meyer lemon and Gravenstein apple.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Chardonnay Estate, which is from the Arroyo Grande Valley, is outstanding. Notes of white flowers, white peach and saline-like characteristics all emerge from the medium-bodied, chiseled, clean and beautifully precise Chardonnay. Mostly from the Rincon Vineyard, with smaller portions from Rose
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.
One of the coolest growing areas in California, the Arroyo Grande Valley runs from the southwest to the northeast, just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean and is part of the Central Coast AVA. Situated so that cold Pacific Ocean air and fog is allowed to filter into the valley, Arroyo Grande also has an incredibly long growing season. Bud break occurs in February in most years with flowering in May and harvest in late September; the area is classified as cool Mediterranean.
These weather factors combined with the soil types—continental and marine rocks, greywacke, limestone, shale and volcanic—create wines with great concentration and fresh acidity. The cooler end of the valley is perfect for Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and is a good producer of sparkling wines. The warmer, more inland part of the valley is home to some of California’s oldest Zinfandel vines.