Sonoma-Cutrer Unveils Dutton Ranch Chardonnay

California winemaker Sonoma-Cutrer has announced the release of Dutton Ranch Chardonnay, part of its annual Winemaker’s Release series.

Known for their chardonnay fruit, Dutton Ranch has been a long-time grower partner of Sonoma-Cutrer. When planning for this year’s Winemaker’s Release, the winery invited Dutton Ranch to be the first designated grower vineyard to be featured in the series. Members of the Dutton family have been working the land in Sonoma County since the 1880s, and today, the family is farming approximately 1,200 acres of sustainable wine grapes in the Russian River Valley, Green Valley and Sonoma Coast appellations.

“For this year’s Winemaker’s Release, we wanted to celebrate one of our favorite Russian River Valley growers,” says Director of Winemaking Cara Morrison. “Six generations of Duttons have been growing high-quality fruit in Sonoma County for nearly 60 years and Sonoma-Cutrer has been partnering with them for nearly 20 years. We hope you enjoy the wine as much as we enjoyed making it!”

To create this wine, chardonnay grapes were harvested in late September from two Dutton Russian River Valley Vineyards: Gerboth and Alpers. After hand-sorting, the grapes were whole-cluster pressed to avoid bitter tannins from the skins and grape seeds. The cool, golden-green, free-run juice was sent directly to French barrels for fermentation. The wine was then aged sur-lies in French oak that were procured by Sonoma-Cutrer’s forester from the Orleans region of France.

Dutton Ranch Chardonnay has aromas of lightly baked apple, pie crust, melon, nectarine, clove, oak spice and toasted sourdough bread with butter, the company reports. Flavors of peach, oak spice and baked apple appear on the palate.

Sonoma-Cutrer’s Winemaker’s Release Dutton Ranch Chardonnay is 14.2% ABV. The suggested retail price is $39.99 per 750-ml. bottle.

This follows the recent news of Sonoma-Cutrer naming a new Director of Winemaking, and releasing of Simply Cutrer, the brand’s first canned wine

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