2021 Chehalem Mountains Chardonnay

$40.00

PEONY BLOOMS
UNDER APPLE TREE HIVE
THERE IS THERE THERE

Our Chehalem Mountains Chardonnay comes from the eponymous Chehalem Mountain Vineyard located on a lovely little hillock between the southern knuckle of the Chehalem Mountains proper and its nested AVA Ribbon Ridge. Here soil is marine sedimentary on a south-facing slope at 450 feet. Clonal selection is old Wente and 76, both tried and true expressions of Oregon Chardonnay. The site’s provenance is its adjacency to the spot where Dick Erath planted the first Chardonnay in the region in 1974. The grapes were hand harvested on September 11 th , 2021, gently whole bunch pressed, settled and racked to barrels for fermentation and aging. The wine was encouraged through malolactic fermentation and kept on lees until bottling in September 2022.

TASTING NOTES:
This wine has me thinking of movement, graceful & on point through prairie grass. It’s crisp like an apple fresh off the tree with sweet pea and pear, a hint of flint and floral chamomile nights. I see lemon drops, beeswax, a pinch of salt and a Danish biscuit with apricot preserves. For the woodwind section there is a nod to fresh clarinet reed. This wine has a tactile salivaty line drive acidity twirling balanced and fresh, like Alpine air and rain on rocks, at ease with poise and balance.