Sonoma Coast Vineyards Gold Ridge Hills Chardonnay 2012
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Wilfred
Wong
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
It has now been more than a decade since founders John and Barbara Drady turned their passion for wines into a vocation. Wisely teaming up with experienced winemaker Tony Austin, the Dradys are owners of one of Sonoma Coast's most respected wineries. The 2012 Sonoma Coast Gold Ridge Hills Chardonnay shows wonderful complexities of ripe- core fruit, appealing sweet earth and lush buttery notes. It finishes with excellent balance and freshness. Drinks quite well now; will continue to develop and improve over the next several years. (Tasted: July 8, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert
Parker
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John and Barbara Drady founded SCV with winemaker Anthony (Tony) Austin in 2001. Their affinity for the Pacific Ocean and surrounding landscape brought them to the Sonoma Coast and their passion for Pinot Noir drove them to create Sonoma Coast Vineyards.
Combining over two decades of wine industry experience, John and Barbara teamed with Tony to utilize his wealth of expertise and experience to create the stunning wines of SCV.
Sonoma Coast Vineyards handcrafts wines from a unique cold-climate growing area west of the Russian River Valley and a mere five miles from the Pacific Ocean.
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.
A vast appellation covering Sonoma County’s Pacific coastline, the Sonoma Coast AVA runs all the way from the Mendocino County border, south to the San Pablo Bay. The region can actually be divided into two sections—the actual coastal vineyards, marked by marine soils, cool temperatures and saline ocean breezes—and the warmer, drier vineyards further inland, which are still heavily influenced by the Pacific but not quite with same intensity.
Contained within the appellation are the much smaller Fort Ross-Seaview and Petaluma Gap AVAs.
The Sonoma Coast is highly regarded for elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, increasingly, cool-climate Syrah. The wines have high acidity, moderate alcohol, firm tannin, and balanced ripeness.