Winemaker Notes
This mineral-driven Chardonnay is redolent of citrus blossom, honeycomb, passion fruit and fresh hay, with aromas of sea air and wet slate. The palate is linear with flavors of stone fruit, grilled white peach, river rock and Meyer lemon. The finish is firm and lingering with hints of mint leaf.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
From one of the Willamette Valley's founding names, Ponzi, comes this fleshy, gregarious Chardonnay. Brilliant balance is achieved with lower alcohols and a freshness that ais met delightfully by ripe, rich fruits. The aromatics offer rich honeysuckle, clover honey and ripe mango pulp. The palate brightness is rounded tropical fruit notes of grilled savoury pineapple with a saline brilliance that carries the finish seemingly forever.
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James Suckling
A supple mouthfeel, great balance and delicious tree fruit give this wine good generosity and appealing elegance. Crisp green apples, ripe Anjou pears, hints of toast and lemon zest on a medium to full body that’s gently laced with bracing acidity. Drink now or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Chardonnay Laurelwood District has bright aromas of lemon curd, roasted almonds, hay and beeswax. The light-bodied palate is just as lively, its concentrated fruit backlit by fireworks of fresh acidity. It has a silky texture and a long, understated finish. You could drink it now for its pure, fresh expression or let it develop savory complexity in bottle over the next decade.
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Wine Spectator
Fragrant and attractively structured, with refined apple, pear and nectarine flavors that glide on the polished finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A bright medium yellow color, the 2022 Chardonnay Laurelwood comes from the Laurelwood District and offers notes of salted melon, fresh apples, savory toast, and wet pavement. Approachable and midweight, it floats on the palate with a clean and fresh, juicy feel. It’s a total charmer to drink over the next 3-5 years.
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Vinous
The 2022 Chardonnay Laurelwood bursts from the glass with a zesty blend of lemon zest, ground ginger, rosemary and green apples. This sweeps across the palate, displaying a pretty sweetness and honeyed inner florals contrasted by a saline mineral core. It’s soft and enveloping yet finishes fresh, with hints of almond custard and green melon that linger.
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.
The Chehalem Mountains is a northwest-southeast span of several distinct mountains, ridges and peaks in the northern part of the Willamette Valley. Of all of Willamette Valley's smaller AVAs, it is closest to the city of Portland. Its highest summit, Bald Peak at an elevation of 1,633 feet, serves to generate cooler air for the rest of the AVA and its hillside vineyards. The region covers 70,000 acres but only 1,600 acres are planted to vines; soils of the Chehalem Mountains are a mix of basalt, ocean sediment and loess.