Winemaker Notes
Enjoy this wine in its youth or over the next 10 to 15 years while it continues to develop in the bottle.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Starting with the Chardonnay, the 2016 Chardonnay Wayfarer Vineyard is an extraordinary effort as well as world-class. Offering an ultra-pure bouquet of white flowers, tangerine, crushed citrus, and hints of brioche and marzipan, it hits the palate with medium-bodied richness, a seamless, elegant texture, riveting acidity, and a great, great finish. It’s certainly one the gems in the great vintage and is going to benefit from a year or two of bottle age and keep for 15+ years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Chardonnay Wayfarer Vineyard opens with beguiling scents of fresh ginger, orange blossoms, baking bread, toasted almonds and beeswax with a core of pineapple, grapefruit, lemon meringue pie and green mango. Medium to full-bodied, the palate explodes with tropical and citrus fruit goodness, supported by a racy line of acid and finishing on a persistent gingery note.
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Wine Enthusiast
Moderately structured, complex and balanced in weight, this is a tremendous white, coastal in briny salt breeze and oak. The fruit profile is savory and crisp, a mix of lime zest and tangerine that brightens and lengthens the well-integrated palate.
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James Suckling
A bold style with rich nougat and glacé peaches, leading to a palate that has soft, round, butter-infused peaches and a delightfully fresh finish. Drink now.
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Wine Spectator
Firm and fleshy, with good cut to the focused green pear, Granny Smith apple and kiwifruit flavors. Hints of dried tarragon show on the crisp finish. Drink now through 2022.
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.