Winemaker Notes
This wine offers notes of lemongrass, citrus blossom, jasmine, and hints of sourdough bread. Those flavors carry onto a lively and well-balanced palate that offers wonderful transparency, purity and length.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of white peaches, lemons, baking spice, mandarins and pastry. The palate is medium-bodied with balanced acidity and a rounded mouthfeel. Shows generosity and underlying power and gives immediate drinking pleasure.
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Vinous
The 2022 Chardonnay Willamette Valley lifts from the glass with a pretty blend of wildflowers, candied lime, chamomile and white peach. Seductively round, it offers a contrasting mix of ripe orchard fruit and salty mineral tones that pepper the senses. Lemony concentration puckers the cheeks and leaves the mouth watering for more.
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Wine Spectator
Tart and refreshing, with lively tones of lemon, nectarine and orange blossoms that end on a vibrant accent. Drink now. 1,144 cases made.
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.