Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Chardonnay Cascadia has an inviting nose of baked apples, crushed hazelnut, clover honey, orange blossom, clotted cream and stone with a classy framing of sweet spice. The light to medium-bodied palate is intense, gaining focus and precision in the mouth as the juicy acidity comes through, finishing long and textured. I love this classic Oregon play between richness and structural precision.
-
James Suckling
There’s a fresh, lime and lemon edge here that is also framed with crushed stones and flinty nuances. The palate has a very composed and contained feel with lightly spicy notes and a fresh, melon finish. Drink now.
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.
Ribbon Ridge is a regular span of uplifted, marine, sedimentary soils (called Willakenzie), whose highest ridge elevations twist like a ribbon. An early settler from Missouri named Colby Carter noticed this unique topography and gave the region its name in 1865—though it wasn’t declared its own AVA until 140 years later, in 2005. The AVA is enclosed by mountains on all sides between Yamhill-Carlton and the Chehalem Mountains, and is actually part of the larger Chehalem Mountains AVA. Its soils have a finer texture than its neighbors with parent materials composed of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. Given its presence of natural aquifers in this five square mile area, most vineyards are actually easily dry farmed!