Nose

The 2017 Dutton Ranch Chardonnay delivers aromas of ginger, guava and Crème brûlée with toasted almond, and toffee-brown sugar.

Palate

Dense, and full bodied, there’s a pleasingly crisp and mouthwatering green apple note on the palate that melds with dried apricot, tangerine flavors along with a hint of toasted oak. The wine finishes dry with fresh acidity and a touch of lemon zest and candied ginger. Once again, Dutton Ranch has delivered
a wonderfully age-worthy wine that captures the charm and complexity of some of Sonoma County’s oldest Chardonnay vines.

Growing Conditions

Made with some of the oldest plantings of Chardonnay in western Sonoma County, this wine is predominantly a blend of California heritage clones and selections—Hyde-Wente, Robert Young, Rued, UC Davis Clone 4 and Spring Mountain. Since some of these vines are dry farmed, they produce small but intensely concentrated berries, making for great depth of flavor and texture. Historically, Dutton Ranch yields fragrant, tropical aromatics and a crisp mineral character. Dutton Ranch is in the heart of Russian River’s cool Green Valley.

The 2017 growing season kicked off with record rainfall, a welcome addition after almost five years of drought. In the early spring the weather began to clear, and the growing season began to look up with sunny and warm conditions. Around flowering, weather conditions started to oscillate between foggy and windy days and unusually hot spikes. This continued into June, where unseasonably hot weather left clusters with small berries and a much lighter crop than predicted. More very hot weather arrived at the end of August and remained for two weeks, causing us to scramble to get the grapes into the winery at ideal ripeness levels. Fortunately, our many farming relationships delivered wonderfully, escaping most of the heat related stresses, delivering perfectly ripe fruit.

Harvest

We started harvest on August 18th with sparkling cuvee and brought our last grapes in on September 27th. When the fires broke out in Napa and Sonoma the night of October 8 we had, fortunately, already picked all of our grapes.

Winemaking

• 100% Whole-cluster pressed
• 100% indigenous yeast fermentations
• Sur lie aged with weekly stirring
• 100% malo-lactic fermentation in barrel

Aging

• 100% Burgundian French oak barrels (35% new; 65% 1-2-year old)