Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I always love Shiels’ Chardonnay, and her 2012 Chardonnay Dubrul Vineyard is made in a rich, full-flavored, concentrated style that always stays beautifully balanced, as well as highly drinkable. In addition, it ages beautifully. Giving up lots of ripe golden fruits, white flowers, honeysuckle and hints of buttered citrus, it’s medium+-bodied, brilliantly fresh, and has a great finish. Aged 17 months in 40% new French oak, it will have a decade or more of longevity.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe and fleshy without any sense of heaviness, this expressive style deals out pear, green guava, clove and clotted cream aromas and flavors with restraint. Comes together in a whoosh on the finish. Drink now through 2020.
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.
As the first recognized wine-growing region in the Pacific Northwest, Yakima Valley is centrally located within Washington’s vast Columbia Valley. The region also includes Washington’s oldest Cabernet Sauvignon vines, Otis Vineyard, planted in 1957, and Harrison Hill Vineyard, planted in 1963. Yakima Valley contains three smaller sub-regions: Rattlesnake Hills, Red Mountain, and Snipes Mountain and is ideal for both red and white wine production. In fact, Yakima Valley is Washington’s most diverse region, boasting more than 40 different grape varieties over about one hundred miles.
The cooler parts of the valley are home to almost half of the Chardonnay and Riesling produced in the state! Both are made in a wide range of styles depending on the conditions of the vineyard site.
But its warmer locations yield a large proportion of Washington’s best Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. The finest Yakima Valley reds are jam-packed full of red cherry, currant, raspberry or blackberry fruit, as well as cocoa, herb, spice and savory notes, and exhibit a supple texture, great body, focus and length.