Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Lean, steely, sharply focused and distinctive for its minerality, with a streak of wet stone and crushed brick aromatics adding depth to the green apple, star fruit and spice flavors. Lingers enticingly on the finish. Drink now through 2022. 219 cases made.
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Wine Enthusiast
Already drinking nicely, this offers generously ripened peach, candied lemon and pineapple fruits. The lush flavors are balanced against fresh, natural acidity, with little or no time in new oak apparent.
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.
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.