Winemaker Notes
This beautiful, delicately straw-colored Chardonnay bursts from the glass with lemon verbena, white flowers and citrusy perfume, then swings toward orange zest and Galia melon. Precise and focused upon entry, but the tension escalates quickly with tangerines, white stone minerality and crisp peach flavors that push and elongate into a long, elevated and textured finish. This wine shows stunning detail and persistence throughout.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Chardonnay Affinités has pure scents of yellow apples, quince, saline, dried chamomile and beeswax. The light-bodied palate has a satiny, expansive texture complementing its detailed, honeyed fruit. It's balanced by gently tangy acidity and has a long, expressive finish.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2019 Nicolas-Jay Affinités Chardonnay is stylish, refined, and long. TASTING NOTES: This wine is bright and fresh with aromas and flavors of tart citrus, lime peel, and dried earth. Pair it with roasted crab legs in a wine reduction sauce. (Tasted: April 18, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
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James Suckling
Peaches, spiced pears, grilled lemons and toasted hazelnuts on the nose. It’s medium-to full-bodied with buttery, concentrated layers of stone fruit and spice. Lots of freshness and personality. Hints of yogurt and vanilla bean at the end. Unfiltered. Drink now.
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.