Winemaker Notes
Expressive and vibrant, our 2021 Chardonnay Arthur opens with a flourish of tart green apple and a focused bouquet of orange blossom and nicely ripe melon. There is lemon zest, honeysuckle, and fresh almonds on the palate, with a note of pear essence on the finish. It is drinking beautifully now with nice balanced acidity and a medium-long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Chardonnay Arthur offers pure, ringing tones of yellow pears and apples, clover honey, elderflower, hay and allspice. The light-bodied palate has a deep core of spicy apple fruit that gives way to expansive, honey-nut tones. It has a balance of mouthwatering acidity and a long, perfumed finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Fresh and flinty, the 2021 Chardonnay Arthur has attractive resinous aromas of pine, green apple, and lemon-lime citrus oils. Medium-bodied, with good ripeness and a lovely carriage of fruit and fresh acidity, it has a silky texture and fantastic balance, with elegant custardy spice on the finish. A vibrant white that’s drinking great now, it can be enjoyed over the next 5-6 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is my favorite Arthur since “Bewitched.” It is medium-bodied, with frisky acidity and a texture that’s like biting into a cold, crisp apple. It is packed with aromas and flavors of Golden Delicious apples, lemon butter, ginger, butter, brioche and white peony tea.
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Wine Spectator
Handsomely elegant, with an effortless complexity that reveals pear flavors accented by apple peel and lemon verbena as this glides on the crisp, polished finish. Drink now. 3,030 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.
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.