Winemaker Notes
The 2018 Seven Springs Chardonnay has intense aromatics leaning towards lemon curd, pineapple, slightly ripe strawberry, peach blossoms, and orange peel. The palate reveals acute concentration, with layers of white nectarine, lemon spritz and a sprinkle of salt. Seven Springs is densely textured with a long taught finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Ken Pahlow and Erica Landon are among the few who have a contract with Evening Land to get a small amount of chardonnay from its Seven Springs Vineyard. Their fruit comes from 1.7 acres on the shallow south ridge, where the soils peter out to almost pure basalt. They deliver a translucent wine: It seduces in seconds, a heady savor of bread dough and apple pie, with just a hint of caramelly oak behind the lees accents. But the wine feels as light as gossamer, lacy and fine, with a golden sheerness one taster described as sunlight seen through piecrust. Very expressive now, it has the acid structure and vibrancy to cellar.
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Wine Enthusiast
This full-bodied, sappy wine has the sort of sweet-tart appeal of a very fine Vouvray. Ripe lemon and grapefruit carry the citrus fruit, with nectarine filling out the palate. There's a delicate saltiness coming up in the lingering finish. As it breathes it opens nicely into a well-rounded wine with palate-coating richness.
Editor's Choice
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chardonnay Seven Springs Vineyard has inviting scents of yellow apples, pie crust, spices and a charcuterie note. The palate is delicately styled and intensely flavored, with a fresh, lifted finish.
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.
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.