Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This single-vineyard expression by winemaker Eric Johnson is very supple on the nose with aromas of white peach, lychee, toasted almonds and lime sorbet. Voluptuous flavors of baked pear, cinnamon and light butterscotch are wrapped in a silky smooth palate, hitting all of Chardonnay’s notes.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Chardonnay Oliver's Vineyard is a big step up and has classic white flowers, pineapple cream, and toasty oak aromas and flavors as well as medium to full body. I love its intensity as well as its ripe, polished style. Picking up some salinity and marine notes with time in the glass, drink it over the coming 7-8 years.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Planted in 1991 and named after the winery's founder, Oliver Talley, the 2016 Talley Vineyards Oliver's Vineyard Chardonnay comes right at you with plenty to offer. TASTING NOTES: This is a rich and fully flavored Chardonnay from the Edna Valley AVA. Its aromas and flavors show rewarding tropical fruits and savory oak. Pair its rich delivery with shellfish in cream sauce. (Tasted: August 13, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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.
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.