Winemaker Notes
With exuberant aromatics, the 2019 Chardonnay springs from the glass with pear, melon and yuzu notes. That energy persists on to the palate, showing flavors of lemon custard, flint, brioche and green apple skin. The pale gold hue of this wine, bookended by silver edges, is something to behold. Bright, clean, and buzzing with fruit, this wine is a big reason why we’re so infatuated with Willamette Valley Chardonnay.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a single-vineyard expression from what may be considered the epicenter for great Oregon Chardonnay. It's poised on a gustatory balance bar perfectly positioned between fruit, acid and barrel flavors. Barrel fermented and aged (one third new), its polished flavors mix lemon custard, puréed pears, green apples, apple-pie spices and a hint of caramel. It's full through the palate and out a lingering finish.
Editors' Choice -
Wine Spectator
Precise and polished, with green apple, floral lemon and toasty spice flavors that glide on the lingering finish.
In 1993, Archery Summit set its sights on creating wines of real purpose in the Willamette Valley. Since then, the Dundee Hills winery has helped establish the region as the cradle of cooler-climate American wine. Winemaker Kim Abrahams and her team achieve bar-raising wines through hard-won instincts—the familiarity gained from many shared vintages and from tending vineyard sites they know intimately.
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 focus on strengthening the well-being of the vineyard through minimal spraying, careful clone selection, heightened biodiversity, and more. Archery Summit is committed to ensuring that the soils and biodiversity of each site remain as healthy and vibrant as when they first began cultivating 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.