Winemaker Notes
The aroma is complex with layers of mineral, smoke, herbs. The wine is silky, racy and complex on the palate. A lasting finish of citrus, pear, and white flowers concludes with flinty, mouthwatering minerality.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Chardonnay Avni has delicate scents of green pear and fresh quince with notes of lemon cream and dried flowers. The light-bodied palate is open, expansive and ultra perfumed, with a seamless, satiny structure and a long finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is crystal clear, fresh as a mountain spring, loaded with green apple, lime and grapefruit. It was barrel fermented and aged sur lie in a mix of puncheons and casks of various sizes. It's young and sharp, with excellent penetration and supporting acidity that finishes with a hint of green olives.
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Wine & Spirits
The 2019 Avni draws mostly from Larry Stone’s Eola–Amity Hills sources, including his estate, as well as Bunker Hill and an unnamed source in the Van Duzer Corridor. This wine starts out broad and weighty in the glass, with provocative scents of lees and orange oil, giving way to firm, savory fruit. This may be Lingua Franca’s entry-level wine but it’s substantial, with the weight for pork loin.
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.