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750ml
Bottle:
$24.94
$35.94
Moving to the four Chardonnays I was able to taste, the 2018 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast reveals a light gold color as...
750ml
Bottle:
$49.70
Lovely aromas of apricot, lavender and caramel ebb into bright flavors of lemon/lime, and a fresh, lengthy finish has...
750ml
Bottle:
$44.69
$46.00
The wine is plush and enveloping, and yet like all of Jim Clendenen's wines, it also remains light on its feet. Hints...
750ml
Bottle:
$68.40
12 bottles:
$64.98
The 2021 Chardonnay Mes Filles Vineyard comes from 25-year-old vines planted at 500 feet in altitude in Goldridge...
750ml
Bottle:
$34.94
12 bottles:
$34.24
This complex white wine is light golden in color, with lemon blossom, mandarin, and pink lady apple aromas. The...
750ml
Bottle:
$44.90
$48.08
6 bottles:
$40.13
This white opens with pretty flavors of peach cobbler and a note of wild fennel, accented by sweet cream hints and a...
750ml
Bottle:
$51.94
Enticing aromas of buttercream, cake batter and macadamia nut are clean and light on the nose of this bottling. The...
750ml
Bottle:
$64.50
12 bottles:
$63.21
The 2020 Chardonnay Estate is a big step up from the 2019. Lemon confit, apricot, ginger and light tropical notes...
750ml
Bottle:
$49.94
12 bottles:
$48.94
The 2022 Chardonnay Estate Vineyard is a prime example of how well-suited some sites on the West Sonoma Coast are to...
750ml
Bottle:
$89.95
12 bottles:
$88.15
The 2020 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast is a blend of declassified barrels from Ferren's single-vineyard program. It was...
750ml
Bottle:
$70.50
12 bottles:
$69.09
Plump, showcasing peaches in syrup, apricot pastry, spices and dried ginger, with nutmeg grace notes, firm acidity...
750ml
Bottle:
$68.88
6 bottles:
$60.80
A ripe golden hue, the 2021 Chardonnay Far Coast Vineyard offers more broadness right away with its perfume of...
750ml
Bottle:
$59.94
$64.08
6 bottles:
$58.74
The 2021 Chardonnay Stone Cote Vineyard is also a youthful golden hue, with aromas of fresh peach, flinty earth, and...
750ml
Bottle:
$45.93
6 bottles:
$45.01
Striking notes of vanilla bean, sage, Asian pear, crushed white stones, and pastry flour, with a fantastic weight....
Chardonnay Merlot United States California Santa Barbara Sonoma Coast 12 Ship Free Items
Of all the white wine grape varietals, surely the one which has spread the furthest and is most widely appreciated is the Chardonnay. This green skinned grape is now grown all over the Old and New Worlds, from New Zealand to the Americas, from England to Chile, and is one of the first varietals people think of when considering white wine grapes. Perhaps this is because of its huge popularity which reached a peak in the 1990s, thanks to new technologies combining with traditional methods to bring the very best features out of the Chardonnay grape, and allow its unique qualities to shine through. Most fine Chardonnay wines use a process known as malolactic fermentation, wherein the malic acids in the grape juice are converted to lactic acids, allowing a creamier, buttery nature to come forward in the wine. No grape varietal is better suited to this process than Chardonnay, which manages to balance these silky, creamy notes with fresh white fruit flavors beautifully.
With its dark blue colored fruits and high juice content, Merlot varietal grapes have long been a favorite of wine producers around the globe, with it being found in vineyards across Europe, the Americas and elsewhere in the New World. One of the distinguishing features of Merlot grapes is the fact that they have a relatively low tannin content and an exceptionally soft and fleshy character, meaning they are capable of producing incredibly rounded and mellow wines. This mellowness is balanced with plenty of flavor, however, and has made Merlot grapes the varietal of choice for softening other, more astringent and tannin-heavy wines, often resulting in truly exceptional produce. Merlot is regarded as one of the key 'Bordeaux' varietals for precisely this reason; when combined with the drier Cabernet Sauvignon, it is capable of blending beautifully to produce some of the finest wines available in the world.
Of all the New World wine countries, perhaps the one which has demonstrated the most flair for producing high quality wines - using a combination of traditional and forward-thinking contemporary methods - has been the United States of America. For the past couple of centuries, the United States has set about transforming much of its suitable land into vast vineyards, capable of supporting a wide variety of world-class grape varietals which thrive on both the Atlantic and the Pacific coastlines. Of course, we immediately think of sun-drenched California in regards to American wines, with its enormous vineyards responsible for the New World's finest examples of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot based wines, but many other states have taken to viticulture in a big way, with impressive results. Oregon, Washington State and New York have all developed sophisticated and technologically advanced wine cultures of their own, and the output of U.S wineries is increasing each year as more and more people are converted to their produce.
California as a wine producing region has grown in size and importance considerably over the past couple of centuries, and today is the proud producer of more than ninety percent of the United States' wines. Indeed, if California was a country, it would be the fourth largest producer of wine in the world, with a vast range of vineyards covering almost half a million acres. The secret to California's success as a wine region has a lot to do with the high quality of its soils, and the fact that it has an extensive Pacific coastline which perfectly tempers the blazing sunshine it experiences all year round. The winds coming off the ocean cool the vines, and the natural valleys and mountainsides which make up most of the state's wine regions make for ideal areas in which to cultivate a variety of high quality grapes.
Santa Barbara is home to many of California's most sought after wines, with a powerful reputation for superbly crafted, old world style big, flavorful and complex red wines. The white wine industry in the region is growing, too, with many wineries within Santa Barbara successfully experimenting with several classic white wine grape varietals. As in much of California, Santa Barbara benefits from the blazing west coast sunshine, coupled with cooling Pacific Ocean breezes and fogs, which help to temper the grapes and slow the ripening process, thus ensuring more flavor and aroma in the resulting wines. Although Santa Barbara is a relatively young wine region, it is home to many wineries who are extremely dedicated when it comes to demonstrating just how good their terroir is, and how characterful their region's wines can be.