Winemaker Notes
The Estate Chardonnay represents our entire planted acreage, thus provides the most complete expression of Chardonnay from our estate in each vintage. We make our picking decisions with tension and vibrancy favored over opulence and richness, as we believe this gives us the best expression of our sense of place. This wine will benefit from cellaring for at least three years and/or decanting a few hours ahead of time
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Attractive, pear and chamomile-flower aromas with a fresh array of lemons, grapefruit and melon. The palate has great depth and focus with a juicy, fresh and lithe run to the finish. Long and sustained. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Estate gives aromas of toast, fresh quince, golden apples, wet hay, hazelnut and honey with notes of jasmine and white peach. Medium-bodied, it has a sleek, rounded texture and intense savory fruits, refreshed by lip-smacking acidity and finishing long and honeyed.
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Wine Enthusiast
Crisp apple fruit is threaded with light suggestions of vanilla and butterscotch. The relatively low alcohol brings white-radish highlights into play, along with some citrusy herbs such as pineapple sage. It's definitely on the light side, but with the acids and structure to nicely match white fish or simple poultry.
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Wine & Spirits
Oak imprints this wine with a nutty, caramel scent, which gives way after a day to ethereal flavors of green apple and lime, salty and lifted. The texture is firm, richer than expected, infused with a panna-cotta creaminess.
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Wine Spectator
Refreshing and bold with fruit, this white offers tropical fruit and toasty spice accents that finish on a soft, plump note. Drink now. 950 cases made.
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.