Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Wild and perfumed, this full-bodied chardonnay has aromas of miso, white sesame seeds, cardamom, nutmeg and white fruit. It’s wonderfully creamy and textural on the palate, so layered and mouth-filling, but tense and energetic at the same time. Long and vivid. From Dijon clones.
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Decanter
A captivating example of why the Eola-Amity Hills may just be America's best Chardonnay appellation. From the famed Eola Springs site's Block H, with a mix of Dijon and California heritage clones. The Chardonnay protocols at 00 Wines include agressively pressing the wines, allowing it to oxidize in the pan, and elevage includes all the heavy lees. The goal is to maximize the phenolics and all the good stuff, known in Burgundy as the ‘Black Chardonnay’ method.A depth of lemon curd, rich ripe Brazilian papaya and notes of roast almond skin alight the glass with a piquant seaspray saline freshenss. The palate is lush, citrus cream, clover honey and fleshy ripe peach. A dazzling minerality finishes this wine so impeccably fresh.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Pouring a bright straw/yellow hue, the 2022 Chardonnay Seven Springs Vineyard offers lifted, flinty, and reductive notes upon opening, with aromas of crushed stones, salted pineapples, lime leaf, and vanilla. Coming from the Eola-Amity Hills, this medium to full-bodied Chardonnay boasts lovely richness balanced with a weightless feel and features a silky texture with a long-lasting finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Chardonnay Seven Springs is dynamic and expressive! White peach, lemongrass and panna cotta are underpinned by wafts of flint, allspice, honey and almonds on the nose, and as it opens in the glass, it reveals soaring floral perfume. The medium-bodied palate offers complex, highly concentrated flavors, and its new French oak is already well integrated. Its satiny, mouth-coating texture is foiled by vibrant acidity, and it has a very long, nuanced finish. It continued to improve for several days after the bottle was opened and should be long lived in the cellar.
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Vinous
Delicate and floral in the glass, the 2022 Chardonnay Seven Springs blossoms with a bouquet of chamomile, mint and yellow apples as a hint of smoky reduction adds lovely contrast. Supple and round but also quite savory, this washes across the palate with a salty mix of white pit fruits and lime as exotic inner spice tones arc across the palate. It finishes like liquid potpourri, saline and long, leaving a crunchy sensation and a citrus tinge that linger so long. The 2022 is a spice box with many years of evolution ahead of it.
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.