Winemaker Notes
This nicely made wine is best served well chilled and paired with seafood such as Columbia River steelhead or smoked Idaho Kokanee trout.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Hawthorn, white peach, fresh mango, lemon zest, flint and cedar on the nose. It’s medium-to full-bodied with bright acidity and a tight, flavorful palate. Energetic finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine is mostly estate fruit, along with a dash (13%) from Celilo Vineyard's 1980 plantings. The aromas pull you in, with notes of pear, yellow apple, star fruit and kisses of pineapple and spice, showing an appealing purity. The palate has concentration and richness, but also exquisite balance and dexterity. Lemony notes persist on the finish. The acid balance is spot on, and as always with this producer, it's all about grace and subtlety. Give it some additional time in bottle to see it at its best. Editors' Choice.
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Wine & Spirits
Woodward Canyon’s chardonnay style has always been rich and structured, and this is no exception; but within the oak frame there’s a lively, lemony flavor, keeping the texture on point and counterbalancing the creaminess. Open a bottle for sous-vide chicken.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Starting with the white, the 2019 Chardonnay is a juicy, Chablis-like effort offering medium-bodied aromas and flavors of lemon curd, white grapefruit, and flowers. I love its purity and it should keep for a couple of years.
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.