2019 Hartford Court Chardonnay Russian River Valley

2019 Hartford Court Chardonnay Russian River Valley

2019 Hartford Court Chardonnay Russian River Valley The 2019 Hartford Court Russian River Valley Chardonnay offers subtle aromas of jasmine flower, citrus oil, green apple and pear. The elegant aromatics are complemented by fresh kiwi, lemon drop and green apple flavors. The fruit focused mid-palate is followed by subtle mineral notes and a hint of crystallized ginger in the finish.

Hartford Family

Hartford Family Winery was founded in 1994 as a result of Don and Jennifer Hartford’s appreciation for the wines, the people, and the unique vineyards near their Russian River Valley home. Located in the Sonoma County town of Forestville, the winery is about 15 miles from the cool Pacific Coast.

Making delicious wines of high personality is directly related to the difficult locations of our vineyard sources, the limited production of our bottlings and the varietals we use. “Character through adversity” is an expression that we believe applies to people and grapevines and surviving adversity builds character, and personality, in both.

(Los) Carneros is one of California’s oldest and most celebrated viticultural areas. It was first planted with grapes in the 1830s, and now ranks among the world’s top regions for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, including when the two varieties are combined to make sparkling wines in the traditional method. (© Copyright material, Wine-Searcher.com)

The official Carneros AVA (created in 1983) covers an area of 90 square miles (230 square km) on the southernmost foothills of the Mayacamas and Sonoma mountain ranges. This location means the AVA is divided between America’s two most famous wine-producing regions – the eastern half in Napa, the western half in Sonoma. Many producers label their wines as “Carneros Napa Valley” or “Carneros Sonoma Valley”, depending on which side of the county line they are located.

The topography here – and the cool, windy mesoclimate it creates – is intimately connected with the style of wine produced here. As the mountains disappear (they drop down into San Francisco Bay before rising again in Contra Costa County), so does the protection they provide from the cold, wet winds which blow in from the Pacific Ocean, 30 miles (50km) west of Carneros. This gives Carneros a much cooler, wetter climate than that found further north in the sheltered valleys. This gap in the mountains is known as the Petaluma Gap (for which an AVA was created in 2017), and its influence extends beyond Carneros into other AVAs including Sonoma Coast, Russian River Valley and even the southern end of Napa Valley.