Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Chardonnay
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Aromas of sliced apple, dried white flowers and rosemary. Medium-to full-bodied with good texture. Fresh and balanced with a savory white-pepper finish. Very charming.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Chardonnay Frenchman Hills showed beautifully, with a medium-bodied, round, textured, yet still elegant profile as well as lots of apple blossom, honeyed minerality, and melon-like aromas and flavors.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Perhaps the most expressive and showy of the range, the 2019 Chardonnay Frenchman Hills Vineyard offers a voluptuous nose that wafts with a delicate balance of oak expression and mineral essence before delightful aromas of pastry cream and sweet citrus sway in unison. Medium to full-bodied, the wine is marked with a fine texture that grows in complexity, revealing layers of sweet citrus, caramelized apples, peach yogurt and hints of pineapple husk with a succulent sensation of wax melon dipped in almond butter. The mouthfeel is fantastic and textural while offering flavors of oak spices with a persistent, spiced white tea essence over the long, lingering finish. It's a fantastic bottling that is sure to please most Chardonnay drinkers.
-
Vinous
The 2019 Chardonnay Frenchman Hills comes from one of the great vineyards for Chardonnay, a windy site that produces very small berries. On the nose, it takes on lychee and starfruit tones alongside suggestions of sourdough bread and Japanese pear. The palate is lithe and soft with a velvety texture. Beautiful to consume right now, this has at least another eight years to go.
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.
An important winegrowing state increasingly recognized for its high-quality reds and whites, Washington ranks second in production in the U.S. after California. Washington wines continue to gain well-deserved popularity as they garner higher and higher praise from critics and consumers alike.
Washington winemakers draw inspiration mainly from Napa Valley, Bordeaux and the Rhône as well as increasingly from other regions like Spain and Italy. Most viticulture takes place on the eastern side of the state—an arid desert in the rain shadow of the Cascade mountains. Irrigation is made possible by the Columbia River. Temperatures are extreme, with hot and dry summers and cold winters, during which frost can be a risk.
Washington’s wine industry was initially built on Merlot, which remains an important variety to this day, despite having been overtaken in acreage planted by Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Bordeaux blends and Rhône blends are common as well as single varietal bottlings. Washington reds tend to express a real purity of concentrated fruit. The best examples have a bold richness, seamless texture, plush or powdery tannins and flavors such as licorice, herb, forest floor, espresso and dark chocolate.
In terms of white wine from Washington state, Riesling is the state’s major success story, producing crisp, aromatic examples with plenty of stone fruit that range from bone dry to lusciously sweet. Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc perform nicely here as well, and Viognier is beginning to pick up steam.