Winemaker Notes
Notes of honeycomb, orange blossom and sweet oak jump out of the glass. The sweetly textured palate is framed by exotic stone fruits and vibrant citrus while the creamy notes linger on the finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
There's really a lot of yellow apple character to this chardonnay as well as praline and butterscotch, not to mention banoffee pie. The palate has good fruit but finishes slightly short.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Delivering warm apricot, apple pie and honeyed pear notes over suggestions of croissant, clotted cream and orange blossoms, the 2015 Chardonnay has a medium body and refreshing backbone cutting through the restrained flavors, finishing with good persistence.
Soléna is a combination of the words Solana and Soleil, celebrating the sun, moon, and cycles of life. Our story began in 2000 when our founders purchased the 80-acre estate which became our Domaine Danielle Laurent vineyard. Furthering their successful careers in the Oregon wine industry, Laurent Montalieu and Danielle Andrus gifted this vineyard to each other for their wedding, and began making wine under the label named Soléna after their newborn daughter.
Soléna Estate showcases the beauty of terroir in our site-specific wines. They craft delicious wine from our estate and other iconic vineyards around the Northwest. They're well known for ageable Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris all with Laurent's signature expressive aromatics and vibrant mid-palate. Visit our estate in Yamhill to see how they steward wines of legacy and purpose!
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.