Winemaker Notes
Intoxicating and inviting. Bosc pear, lime leaf, white peach chamomile flower and limestone. There is a depth and complexity, luring you to new discoveries: lemon curd, oyster shell, kumquat and tangerine. Another classic ready to enchant and delight!
Blend: 100% Chardonnay
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Green apple, pear and lily on the nose. Medium-bodied with a pleasant, oily texture. Nuanced and layered palate. Wet and chalky-mineral character mixes with notes of matchstick and fresh hay. Wonderful. Drink or hold.
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Jeb Dunnuck
I loved the 2019 Chardonnay Moxee, another beautiful Chardonnay from this team. Stone fruits, orange blossom, and chamomile notes all give way to a medium-bodied, rich, yet fresh and nicely balanced effort that has notable purity and precision and a great finish.
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Vinous
The 2019 Chardonnay Moxee comes from a high-elevation vineyard planted in 1973. It’s aromatically lush and intense, featuring cardamom-dusted challah bread, banana and shades of ripe pear that come together marvelously. Deep and rich with a nice veil of tension, this shows outstanding length. Enjoy it over the next 10 years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Beginning with a golden yellow core, the 2019 Chardonnay Moxee Vineyard offers aromas of pastry cream, yellow apples and dusty yellow flowers on the nose. Medium-bodied yet texturally pleasing, the palate offers plenty of mineral tension while offering a surprising weight with a succulent acidity and a soft waxy mouthfeel. The Chardonnay ends with a lingering conclusion that will remain food-friendly for years.
Rating: 90+
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.