Winemaker Notes
In a world dominated by Pinot Noir, the Chardonnays of Evening Land have quietly earned a loyal following. The bright, clean, and lively Seven Springs Chardonnay grows in the rockier areas of the vineyard’s mid-slope, offering a precise wine of clarity and finesse.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Graceful and elegantly complex, with alluring Meyer lemon and green apple flavors accented by wet stone and sweet anise notes on a lingering finish. Drink now through 2021.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Chardonnay Seven Springs Vineyard opens with fleshy yellow pear and red apple skin with faint honey and toast notes and acacia flowers. Light to medium-bodied with a slight creaminess, it opens nicely in the mouth with ripe apples and touches of stone fruits, with great juicy acidity, finishing long with lots of mineral and honey notes.
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.