Wayfarer Wayfarer Vineyard Chardonnay 2017
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Winemaker Notes
This pale yellow Chardonnay offers delightful floral aromas of honeysuckle, daphne, and orange blossom, with hints of pastry and Jordan almonds. The palate exhibits hints of citrus and stone fruit, orange marmalade, and touches of toasted almond and caramel. Crisp acidity balances the fruit of this complex, focused wine over a bright finish. 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
The 2017 Chardonnay Wayfarer Vineyard comes from a handful of clones and saw 65% new barrels. It's a riveting Chardonnay that offers notes of caramelized citrus, honeysuckle, toasted brioche, and scorched earth. Rich, medium to full-bodied, with bright acidity, this beautiful, layered, elegant wine builds with time in the glass. Elegance and purity are the buzzwords, but it has depth and length.
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Wine Enthusiast
This stunning wine impresses vintage to vintage and 2017 is no exception. Golden apple, pear and honey fig highlight a fleshy, sumptuous and lush texture of nuanced acidity and oak, the fruit estate grown above ocean fog. Spicy nutmeg, cardamon and a hint of ginger round out the complex fruit and structure.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Wayfarer Vineyard has pure scents of yellow apple, Meyer lemon and white peach, accented by crème fraîche, crushed stone, fresh hay and almonds with nuances of nutmeg and toast. Medium-bodied and creamy textured, it explodes with expansive flavor layers, with wonderful texture to counter the bright, juicy acidity and a long, honeyed finish. I can't wait to taste this after another year or two in bottle! 800 cases produced.
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Wine Spectator
Rich, plush and spicy, with plenty of ripe tropical notes to the red peach, Gala apple and dried ginger flavors. Honeyed details linger on the finish. Drink now through 2023.
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In tandem with his daughter Cleo and renowned winemaker Bibiana Gonzales Rave, Pahlmeyer drives to make intricate wines of transcendence, answering to powerful, ever-unpredictable climate that rewards only the most observant and meticulous. It is an endeavor of true passion, an experiment that pushes the exactitude of winegrowing and winemaking to the farthest limits.
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.