Winemaker 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.
Flourishing today along the shores of Lake Erie, the Ohio wine industry dates back 300 years when it was established by American Republican politician, Nicholas Longworth of Cincinnati.
Ohio’s continental climate supports native American grape species as well as the common Vitis vinifera wine producing species, and hybrids of the two.