Winemaker Notes
Distinct aromas of gooseberry and wildflowers welcome you to the glass. As the wine opens, notes of apricot, grapefruit, lemon zest and white peach emerge. On the palate, the essence has a candied quality, with a mix of fennel and almond and finishing with a touch of citrus and soft spices. The texture is beautifully rich, while still maintaining its fresh character.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has a lightly spiced, fresh pear and lime edge with a sense of restraint and freshness. The palate has a lightly creamy feel with fresh, driving clarity of pears and light peaches. Lemons to close. Some stainless and some oak here, keeping it fresh.
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Decanter
Classically elegant. Racier even than many of the Drouhin offerings from Burgundy, this open with bright, pure citrus fruit. The complexity develops with time, as the limited cask maturation (10 months, 15% new) reveals itself. Fermented half in cask half in tank, the texture is silky, lithe and crisp, but there is still enough substance to satisfy. Drinking Window 2020 - 2030
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Arthur was aged 10 months in about 15% new oak and has pure aromas of golden apples, quince, toast, honey, almonds and notions of elderflower, hay and chamomile. The light to medium-bodied palate is silky and delicate with mouthwatering acidity and a long, lively finish. This restrained, elegant Chardonnay will benefit from another year in bottle.
Rating: 92+ -
Wine Enthusiast
This cuvée is sourced from the Dundee Hills estate vineyard. It's a pretty wine with pleasing flavors of apple, spice, toast and sandalwood. All Dijon clones, it's not quite as ripe as recent vintages, but nicely focused and balanced through the long finish.
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Wine Spectator
Offers elegant complexity, with a silky texture, plus floral, pear, lemon and blanched almond accents that glide toward a vibrant finish.
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.