Winemaker Notes
This is a remarkable wine with crab, lobster, clams, and oysters.
AVNI Chardonnay 2017 combines fruit from predominantly volcanic soils in the Eola-Amity Hills including grapes from Yamhill-Carlton, and some fruit from the Chehalem Mountains on marine sediments.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine is open and aromatic, with pretty scents of pastry, butter cookie and apple turnover. The apple and apricot fruit is bright and concentrated. Full malolactic and onequarter new French oak aging lends a smooth, buttery finish
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Wine & Spirits
Larry Stone draws this wine from three Oregon appellations, the preponderance from the Eola–Amity Hills. It’s firm and well structured, with a drive and lift that combines high acid and high minerality to make the flavors feel as sharp as a tack. This needs time and a decanter to bring out the fruit.
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Wine Spectator
Lithe and gracefully complex, with baked pear and lemon flavors, accented by spice and cinnamon notes. Builds richness on the finish. Drink now through 2021.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Chardonnay Avni opens with nectarine, peaches and crunchy red apple scents with hints of cashew, citrus peel, crushed stone and a creamy note. The light to medium-bodied palate offers a good balance of mineral and rounded, savory character, finishing with lots of freshness and energy.
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.
One of Pinot Noir's most successful New World outposts, the Willamette Valley is the largest and most important AVA in Oregon. With a continental climate moderated by the influence of the Pacific Ocean, it is perfect for cool-climate viticulture and the production of elegant wines.
Mountain ranges bordering three sides of the valley, particularly the Chehalem Mountains, provide the option for higher-elevation vineyard sites.
The valley's three prominent soil types (volcanic, sedimentary and silty, loess) make it unique and create significant differences in wine styles among its vineyards and sub-AVAs. The iron-rich, basalt-based, Jory volcanic soils found commonly in the Dundee Hills are rich in clay and hold water well; the chalky, sedimentary soils of Ribbon Ridge, Yamhill-Carlton and McMinnville encourage complex root systems as vines struggle to search for water and minerals. In the most southern stretch of the Willamette, the Eola-Amity Hills sub-AVA soils are mixed, shallow and well-drained. The Hills' close proximity to the Van Duzer Corridor (which became its own appellation as of 2019) also creates grapes with great concentration and firm acidity, leading to wines that perfectly express both power and grace.
Though Pinot noir enjoys the limelight here, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay also thrive in the Willamette. Increasing curiosity has risen recently in the potential of others like Grüner Veltliner, Chenin Blanc and Gamay.