Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Proprietress Reserve opens with honeyed toast, cedar and marzipan notes over a guava, applesauce and peach cobbler core. The palate is medium-bodied with lovely freshness and loads of tropical fruit with a cedary kiss on the finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Crisp, focused acidity accompanies firm, supple flavors of pear, ginger and oak in this medium-bodied white. Concentrated in flavor, it was given 15 months in French oak, 43% of it new, adding to the cohesive mesh of fruit, texture and body.
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.
Known for elegant wines that combine power and finesse, Carneros is set in the rolling hills that straddle the southernmost parts of both Sonoma and Napa counties. The cooling winds from the abutting San Pablo Bay, combined with lots of midday California sunshine, create an ideal environment for producing wines with a perfect balance of crisp acidity and well-ripened fruit.
This cooler pocket of California lends itself to growing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah. Carneros is an important source of sparkling wines made in the style of Champagne as well.