Winemaker Notes
The 2023 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Arthur Chardonnay 2023 Chardonnay Arthur offers freshness, complexity and gorgeous flavors – a combination of the winery's specific place in the Dundee Hills and well-loved vines that were planted 30 years ago. Right up front, the nose opens with clear notes of orange orchard, lemon, green apple, and a hint of baking spice. On the palate, a delightful minerality intertwines withflavors of citrus, baked apple and honeysuckle. Drinking beautifully now,this Chardonnay should be something to behold over the next 7-10 years.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Nicely broad and rich in texture, ample and welcoming, with baked apple, cinnamon, light butter and vanilla flavors. Easy and rather soft, with gentle acidity and good length in the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Chardonnay Arthur is scented of yellow apple, white peach, beeswax, hazelnuts and seamlessly integrated oak spice. The medium-bodied palate is satiny and expansive with concentrated, savory flavors. It’s balanced by bright acidity and has a long, energetic finish.
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Wine Spectator
Elegantly structured, rich and refined, with polished apple, lemongrass and spice flavors that build tension on the sleek finish. Drink now. 3,232 cases made.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2023 Chardonnay Arthur is a bright straw/yellow hue and is particularly lovely in this vintage, with elegant notes of poached apples, hints of butterscotch, and orange blossoms coming through on the palate, complemented by fresh flowers and lemon sherbet. The palate is medium to full-bodied with a balanced decadence and elegant length. It’s a highly appealing wine.
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Vinous
The 2023 Chardonnay Arthur is decidedly savory, mixing crushed rocks and nuances of iodine with freshly sliced green apples. It is round and soothingly pliant in feel, showcasing ripe pit fruits elevated by chamomile. The finish leaves a gentle saline concentration and a hint of lemon sorbet, tapering off with medium length.
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.