“The Dutton Ranch Chardonnay showcases the appellation and our vision for this wine beautifully, giving us the classic mix of lively fruit, nutty spice, creamy richness and mouthwatering freshness we love.”

Dutton-Goldfield’s mission is to craft world-class wines that express the personalities of their cool-climate home, through a brightness of fruit, complexity, structure and balance. The winery was born of a handshake in a vineyard in 1998, when longtime colleagues and friends Steve Dutton and Dan Goldfield recognized this shared vision.

Dutton Ranch farms over eighty unique, separate vineyards located in the coolest areas of the Russian River Valley, primarily in the Green Valley appellation. Dan and Steve select their favorite Dutton Ranch vineyards to craft a wine reflecting our vision of classic Russian River Valley Chardonnay. The vineyards we choose are based on our desire to offer wines with fruit intensity, richness and great acid structure, even after full barrel and malolactic fermentation. The heart of our benchmark Chardonnay (75% between them) is our old vine (greater than 30 years), old clone vineyards located in the cold heart of Green Valley: Mill Station, Sullivan, and Walker Hill. They contribute a focused citrus backbone, lemon/lime/ tropical fruit, and mineral overtones to this offering. George Jewell and Dutton Hill provide classic, bright crystalline fruit, while our Dijon clone 95 block of JJJS, in the cold Valley by the old Dutton shop, rounds out the wine with its unctuous pear fruit and creamy mouth feel.

The individual lots are barrel fermented using a combination of indigenous and inoculated yeast strains. They undergo malolactic full fermentation, and the lees are stirred twice monthly through the winter. The blend is assembled, with the primary lees, in early spring, and continues to age in French oak barrels through the summer. We at Dutton-Goldfield choose our barrels to emphasize the fruit and vineyard characteristics of the wine, rather than showcasing the oak itself. We love the ginger/nutmeg overtones of Seguin Moreau, and the buttercream components of Fouquet barrels to compliment the citrus focus of this wine. The wine is bottled in early Fall after approximately ten months in barrel. Aged 10 months in French oak barrels (40% new barrels).