Archery Summit Eola Amity Chardonnay 2018
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James
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Wine &
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
There are countless entry points on the nose of this fragrant and enticing wine, from zesty lime to green peppercorn. The palate is tremendously bright, showing Meyer lemon, Asian pear, and notes of hay. It continues with a second act of alluring flavors, offering slight tropical notes, a bit of earth, as well as amaretto and raw honey. The 2018 Chardonnay exudes elegance, made with a deft touch of new French oak. The way the wine moves from creamy and pastry-like to tart and subtly toasty reflects Chardonnay’s eclectic and endearing personality. The wine represents an exhilarating new era for the variety, one Oregon and the Willamette Valley are very much at the forefront of.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Dried pineapple, apricot, smoked almond, cedar, chalk and some hay on the nose. It’s medium-to full-bodied with bright acidity. Layered with subtle smoke and spice notes. Long, mineral and vivid finish. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Multilayered and impressively textured, this white offers lemon tart, blanched almond and mandarin peel accents that unfurl on a long, savory finish. Drink now through 2021.
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Wine & Spirits
Winemaker Ian Burch manages this chardonnay’s savory components with aplomb. It’s flinty and bright, with a nutty lees note and a fine caramelly oak scent overlying pear and apple flavors. It’s sumptuous and focused at once. For roast chicken.
Other Vintages
2019-
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Enthusiast -
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Spectator -
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Wine
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James
Suckling -
Wine
Spectator
In 1993, Archery Summit set its sights on creating wines of real purpose in the Willamette Valley. Since, the Dundee Hills winery has helped establish the region as the cradle of cooler-climate American wine. Winemaker Ian Burch and his team achieve bar-raising wines by way of earned instincts—the familiarity gained from many shared vintages, tending sites they know personally.
As responsible stewards of the land, Archery Summit engages in minimal-impact agriculture. Sustainability is a dynamic and vital part of growing wine, a practice that ensures both the industry’s future and the overall health of the trade. They practice sustainability wherever possible, from responsible farming in the vineyard to energy-sensitive approaches in the cellar.
Many of the vineyard sites are LIVE (Low Input Viticulture & Enology) certified, meaning they adhere to an internationally-acclaimed set of sustainability standards. These guidelines are site-specific and look to strengthen the well-being of the vineyard through minimal spraying, careful clone selection, heightened biodiversity, and more. Archery Summit endeavors to ensure that the soils and biodiversity of each site are as healthy and vibrant as they were when they found them.
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.