Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Grapes for the 2020 Chardonnay Willamette Valley were picked from August 29 to September 3. It's scented of baked apples, almonds and honey with spicy undertones. The medium-bodied palate has a satiny texture and concentrated, ripe flavor layers, although it maintains tangy acidity, and it has a long, spicy finish.
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Wine Spectator
Supple yet steely, with multilayered pear, lemon verbena and kiwi flavors that draw in fresh ginger accents toward a long, vibrant finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Chardonnay Willamette Valley is floral with yellow flowers of chamomile, almond, and fresh pear. The palate is taught with Meyer lemon, green apple, and wet stone. This is a wonderful and food-friendly wine with fantastic savory appeal. Drink 2024-2030.
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.
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.