Winemaker Notes
The perfect balance of body and acidity makes this an ideal food wine. It will shine with light dishes featuring shellfish, grilled fish, chicken or pasta with spring vegetables. Fresh tarragon as an accent herb works quite well.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine combines fruity tropical flavors of pineapple, honey and papaya with lighter tones of orange and green apple. The rich palate is lifted by bright acidity and a lingering crispness.
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Decanter
Clean, saline and mineral at the start, this theme continues with wafts of sea breeze and oyster shell complexity. The oak is powerful, giving a whiff of toasty pineapple.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chardonnay Oak Knoll District offers loads of crisp white peach, honeysuckle, apple blossom and citrus oil notes followed by a zesty, well-balanced and impeccably clean and fresh Chardonnay with the oak barely noticeable whatsoever. This is a medium to full-bodied, beautifully rendered Oak Knoll Chardonnay to drink over the next 7-8 years.
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.
As one of Napa’s coolest sub-appellations, the area begs for diversity among its vineyards. Merlot and Chardonnay firmly compete with Cabernet Sauvignon for a place here. Some of Napa’s best Zinfandels also come from the Oak Knoll District.
Situated far in Napa’s southern end, Oak Knoll receives a strong cooling influence from both the San Pablo Bay and the Pacific Coast’s evening fog and breezes. Summer days are warm but on average ten degrees cooler than in St. Helena farther north up the valley; summer nights are chilly. A long growing season promotes for leisurely ripening of grape berries, resulting in an impressive balance of sugars, phenols and acidity.
Notable producers include Trefethen, one of the appellation’s oldest wineries, Robert Biale, legendary Zinfandel producer and Lewis Cellars, a family-run, hands-on establishment.