Concentrated apple and pear flavors are flanked by zesty spicy notes. Dried herb and sea salt accents show on the finish.
Aromas of grainy oak, buttered toast, sea salt, pan-seared apples and a hint of white flowers show on the nose of this always classic and familiar wine. It's fairly viscous on the palate, where strong flavors of roasted apple, buttered toast and tangerine spray arise.
This light yellow colored Chardonnay from Kendall Jackson is consistently very good. It opens with a lemon, apple and mild oak bouquet. On the palate, this wine is medium bodied, balanced and easy going. The flavor profile mirrors the nose with light lemon, green apple, mild oak and butter flavors. The finish is dry and its flavors linger nicely. This Chard is friendly. As always, it is a nice glass pour option.
The 2016 Chardonnay Stature opens with ripe peaches, spiced pears and honeyed toast notes plus touches of nutmeg and candle wax. Medium to full-bodied, it has a pleasantly oily texture and a great intensity of ripe, rich fruit, finishing long and spicy.
Arguably, Kendall-Jackson is largely responsible for Americans’ love of Chardonnay. So, it’s not surprising that they should expand their portfolio with site-specific bottlings of that variety. This one, from Santa Maria Valley, delivers fruity, spiced pineapple-like flavors along with the opulence for which KJ is known. 88 points.
Hazelnut, browned butter, honeysuckle and strong orangesicle aromas show on the nose of this bottling, which fits into the classic California Chardonnay category. There’s a rounded entry to the palate, offering flavors of Gravenstein apple and poached pear that are carried on chalky backbone.
Meyer lemon, hazelnut and Gravenstein apple aromas show on the clean and restrained nose of this Chardonnay that comes from Santa Barbara and Monterey counties. Rounded peach blossom, Bartlett pear and more roasted nuts appear on the tightly wound sip.
The 2016 Chardonnay Grand Reserve is scented of ripe honeydew melons, peach blossoms and rose water with a waft of honey-drizzled apricots. Medium-bodied, lively and with plenty of ripe melon and stone fruit flavors, it has nice spice and toast suggestions.
Medium-light golden yellow; honeyed, slightly buttery, apple and tropical fruit aroma with floral notes and hints of ginger and honeysuckle; medium-full body; fleshy, apple and stone fruit flavors with a slight hint of sweetness and a slightly creamy mouthfeel; lingering aftertaste. Highly recommended.
The 2016 Chardonnay Avant is laced with hints of lemon peel, white flowers and orchard fruit. This refreshing, mid-weight Chardonnay offers tons of personality and quality for a very fair price. There is so much to like here.
The value-priced 2016 Chardonnay Vintners Reserve comes all from coastal sites and was brought up in a mix of French and American oak, 11% being new. It offers a clean, balanced, undeniably delicious profile of white peach and orchard fruits, with subtle spice and honeyed notes with time in the glass. It’s textured, balanced, and easy drinking, and is perfect for a house white. Drink it over the coming year or two.
Time to load up, for it's been 95% barrel-fermented and exploits a creamy palate and finish. All chardonnay from Monterey (47%), Santa Barbara (30%), Mendocino (22%) and Sonoma (1%) is done up sur lie and aged five months in older French and US oak with 11% of it new. Good integration of off-dry tropical flavours on the mid-palate with vanilla and cream, followed by slight oak nuances in the finish. A key example of a winemaker's wine blend: consistent from year to year. With a plastic cork there is no need to store – drink as you buy. 88 points.
The 2016 Chardonnay (Sonoma Coast) is one of the more tightly wound wines in this range today. Stylistically, the Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is built on persistence, depth and structure, rather than overt fruit.
Here’s a creamy chardonnay stylized into a pleasantly sweet confection, its pale fruit, scents of hay and touches of oak combining in a white to chill for aperitifs.
Offers flavors of apple, pear and allspice, with oaky overtones.
This robust wine offers oaky overtones to the flavors of apple, pear and allspice. Finishes with notes of dried mint and cardamom.
This unoaked Chardonnay is powered by tangy lemon and pineapple flavors. It’s medium-bodied and has nice concentration without seeming overly ripe. Butter and vanilla touches weave through its lively fresh fruit notes.
The 2015 Chardonnay Avant is soft, open-knit and easy to drink. Candied lemon peel, pineapple white flowers and sweet spice give the wine much of its immediacy. The Avant is done entirely in stainless steel, with partially blocked malolactic fermentation to keep the flavors bright.
This pale yellow colored Chardonnay opens with a mild lemon and almond bouquet. On the palate, this wine is medium bodied, slightly acidic, yet round in the mouth. The flavor profile is a lemon and yellow grapefruit blend with notes stone fruit, almond and a dash of white pepper. The finish is dry and its flavors and gentle acidity fade away nicely. This Chard is a fresh option to consider on a hot summer day. Pair with a grilled mahi-mahi sandwich. 88 points. Very good.
88 points.
Kendall-Jackson's flagship 2015 Chardonnay Vintner's Reserve is a model of consistency. Soft, supple and open-knit, with lovely tropical fruit, white flower and butter notes, the Vintner's Select is a pretty wine to drink over the next 2-3 years.
Any vintner hoping to crack the U.S. premium market in a big way should study this remarkably successful product. It's the American fine-wine palate in a nutshell, worthy of an article in the Harvard Business Review. K-J Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay succeeds with remarkable consistency: boldly ripe and flavourful, vaguely sweet yet essentially dry - a mouthfilling white that drinks like a red (two wines in one!). The 2015 is rounder than a cueball, dense with suggestions of pineapple, syrupy peach, honey, toasted nuts and caramel. Well made, especially given the huge output, and impressively balanced for the style. If California's your go-to wine region, you are likely to love it, though one could argue it's more sugar-tuned for American palates than for most Canadians or Europeans.
There are two million cases (basically the equivalent of 100,000 barrels, and all hand stirred) of the 2015 Chardonnay Vintner’s Reserve. Eighty percent of this wine comes from the estate vineyards, most of them in Monterey, but to a lesser extent, in Santa Barbara, Mendocino and Sonoma. It goes through 100% barrel fermentation, with the breakdown on the barrels 44% French (5% new) and 53% American wood (8% new). It is bottled after seven months to preserve its exuberant fruit characteristics, which readers will find in its round, delicious, ripe peach, delicate honeysuckle and tropical fruit notes. It is a medium-bodied, crisp, amazing Chardonnay. With some two million cases, I’m sure some retailers will stock it in warmer areas of their stores, but when you can find pristine bottles, this wine does deliver. It has only one gram per liter of residual sugar, which destroys the false narrative of its critics that it’s very sweet. It is actually quite dry.
Kendall-Jackson helped define the buttery oaky Chardonnay movement, and this bottling plays that card quite strongly. Oak meets with roasted nuts, sea salt, pecan brittle and Gravenstein apple on the nose. The rounded palate shows sandalwood, candied walnuts and chamomile, though oak is very prominent as well.
Rich fig and smoky oak notes fold together in this full-bodied effort. The fruit is ripe and tilts toward pear, melon and apple flavors, while the oak adds a nice touch. Ends clean and pure.