Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Purity is the first impression this wine gives: There’s no makeup, no filler, just a saline whiff of pineapple, broadening as it opens toward pear. The flavors feel brisk and detailed, a lemon tartness contrasting bread-crust lees, and bringing the wine to a tense finish. For fish, like grilled halibut.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: When I first tried the Adelsheim wines in the 1980s, I knew that this was a property to follow and indeed the 2015 Staking Claim Chardonnay has rewarded me. TASTING NOTES: This wine has it all. Its aromas and flavors of mineral, tart fruit, and chalk suggest a pairing with simply prepared shellfish. (Tasted: October 26, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
Young, sharp and tightly wound, this pushes a complex mix of lime, grapefruit and crisp apple fruit forward. There are subtle notes of Bergamot orange and cardamom, with a light toasty touch from having aged in 21% new oak. Delicious already, it should age nicely for up to a decade.
Established in 1971, Adelsheim is a family-owned and operated winery with estate vineyards located in Oregon's northern Willamette Valley. Over the past 41 years, the Adelsheim Vineyard estate has grown to include twelve exception vineyard sites throughout the Valley, totaling 237 acres. Company co-founder, David Adelsheim, has done work throughout the years to benefit both the Oregon and American wine industries: grape and wine research, wine labeling, industry education, and promotion. He is recognized for his "outstanding service" to the industry and has played a vital role in building the Oregon wine industry and establishing its reputation worldwide. Today, he leads a current generation of passionate staff devoted to leading the industry in crafting consistently transcendent wines.
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.