Winemaker Notes
The Evenstad Reserve Chardonnay represents the art of blending select barrels from Domaine Serene's estate vineyard sites in the Dundee Hills. This combination of Dijon clone vines, Jory soil, and the high elevation estates in the Dundee Hills produces fruit of unparalleled quality for this reserve wine.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of white peaches and under-ripe mangoes with pear drops, savory herbs, crushed stones and raw walnuts. Full-bodied and tight with the density and creaminess of ripe stone fruit, with vivid acidity and a lingering, textured mouthfeel. Delicate character of pastry crust and toffee at the end with a creamy finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Fresh and inviting, the 2020 Chardonnay Evenstad Reserve pours a youthful straw hue and offers up citrus blossom, Williams pear, and delicate baking spice aromas. Medium-bodied, it delivers refreshing lift on the palate, with snappy fresh acidity, crisp green apple fruit, a great mineral backbone, and a flourish of floral perfume that lasts on the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chardonnay Evenstad Reserve is a great effort in a challenging vineyard. It's scented of yellow apples and pears with accents of acacia, baker's yeast and cashew. The palate is silky and spicy with generous, ripe fruit and a long, slightly grippy finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Orchard fruit meets the tropics here, with apricots duking it out with passion fruit for aromatic supremacy. I also enjoyed the wine's floral and spicy mix of plumeria and gardenia. The flavors are a wall of lemon, with lemon bars and lemon balm tea holding court, joined by a bit of saline. Lively acidity is a bonus.
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Wine Spectator
Svelte and rather demure, with appealing lemon and green apple flavors accented by orange peel and spices.
Ken and Grace Evenstad founded Domaine Serene Vineyards and Winery in 1989 when they purchased 42 acres of just-logged land in the Dundee Hills of Oregon and built a five-level, gravity flow winery to produce ultra-premium Pinot Noir. Today, Domaine Serene produces wines from six individual vineyard estates in the Willamette Valley planted exclusively to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Each estate offers a diversity of soils, clones, rootstocks, microclimates, slopes, and elevations that add distinguishing complexity and elegance to the wines.
The Evenstads now own over 1,000 acres, more than 360 of which are planted to vine in three AVAs of the Willamette Valley and are actively preserving Oregon White Oak trees and the biodiversity of the region. They have achieved LIVE certification, the highest certification in the world for sustainable viticulture. Domaine Serene’s wines have won many accolades and awards, including 200 wines scoring 90 points or higher by Wine Spectator. Their 2013 Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir was recognized as #3 Wine in the World, while the 2014 Evenstad Reserve Chardonnay received 95 points and was ranked the #2 Wine in the World according to Wine Spectator. Over the years, Domaine Serene has opened three Oregon Wine Lounges in Portland, Bend, and Lake Oswego that offer wine club members, locals, and visitors an elevated wine experience.
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.