Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chardonnay Estate is grown on Laurelwood soil at 450-600 feet in elevation, barrel fermented and aged for 11 months in 20% new French oak. It has a minerally vein of crushed rock over a core of lemon skin, baked yellow apples, quince and honeycomb. Light to medium-bodied, it offers lovely honeyed orchard fruit in the mouth with a citrusy kick and gently textured, creamy finish. 250 cases produced.
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.