St. Innocent Freedom Hill Chardonnay 2009
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The 2009 Freedom Hill Chardonnay has a nose of ripe pear and peach with hints of spice and citrus blossom. It enters your mouth with ripe peach, pear and apricot flavors with an undercurrent of peach and apricot pit minerality. These flavors extend across the palate and the minerality broadens into the finish. Texturally complex with a nice backbone of acidity and an extended finish. The combination of layered fruit, length, and complex undercurrent of minerality makes it a good match for richer white meat dishes. Match with rich fishes, wild birds, risottos and cheeses. Drinkable at release, it will develop over 6 years.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Light and bright, balancing its pear and nutmeg flavors against lively acidity, lingering enticingly on the finish. Drink now through 2014. 861 cases made.
Other Vintages
2018-
James
Suckling
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Robert
Parker
St. Innocent produces small lot, handmade wines: seven single vineyard Pinot noirs and a blended Pinot noir called the Villages Cuvée, two Chardonnay from Dijon clone plantings, two Pinot gris, and a Pinot blanc.
The philosophy behind the winemaking at St Innocent is that the function of wine is to complement and extend the pleasure of a meal. The characteristics of a wine should enhance different food and flavor combinations - this interaction amplifies the pleasure of a meal. To this end, St. Innocent wines tend toward higher acid levels, and more diverse and balanced flavors.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.