Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Chardonnay Wayfarer Vineyard has a youthful nose of pink grapefruit, white peaches and lemon curd with honeyed toast, beeswax and coriander seed. The palate is very finely crafted, tightly knit and still quite primary, revealing vibrant citrus and stone fruit flavors and a satiny texture, finishing long and minerally.
-
Wine Enthusiast
A high-acid, weighty and complex white, this vintage is even better than the last, gorgeous in a golden tannish color. Tropical guava and white flowers weave seamlessly through a web of minerality and freshness, without compromising body and texture. This is a delicious wine.
-
Wine Spectator
Combines rich tiers of smoky oak and honey-laced fig and melon flavors. The texture is raw and pithy, suggesting time in the bottle will help. Most impressive on the finish, where the flavors maintain their density, focus and persistence. Drink now through 2019.
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.
On the far western edge of the larger Sonoma Coast appellation, the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA hugs right up against the Pacific coast. Vineyards, planted at rugged elevations between 920 to 1,800 feet, occupy only two percent of the total land in the AVA. Fort Ross-Seaview growers believe that the region boasts an ideal mix of sunshine, cool air and beneficial stress for producing high quality Chardonnay and Pinot noir.