Four Grace’s makes a top notch Pinot Blanc, lots of energy.
I concur on PB, but I’m not counting on it. With Chardonnay on a fast ascent and PB being a niche grape, I don’t expect it to be widely made.
But there are already some excellent versions being made and that is enough for me - Kelley Fox Freedom Hill and Barbie, Cameron Giovani, and Paetra. Although I would buy from Walter Scott and Goodfellow if they produced it again (hint hint).
I don’t expect it to be widely made, it’s relatively obscure in other countries anyway. Thanks for the tips.
I would agree completely with this. PH, TA, SO2 and extended lees contact both in barrel and tank. I know my boy Marcus goes long in barrel for his lees contact. Where as we go shorter in barrel (12+ months for the single vineyard wines) then 4-5 months in tank also on the lees which we take to tank. I believe this keeps freshness and tension in the wines and allows for all of the pieces of a given cuvee to come together. To all of this I would have to add trapped CO2 as a big deal with age-ability of Chardonnay. And that time in tank keeps it locked up. It is one of the many take aways from my time working with the team at Evening Land (by the way their 2007’s-2010’s should be drinking quite well now) specifically Dominique Lafon. Details, details, details and EXECUTION. Typical trapped CO2 at bottling is about 1100 mg/L these days. I used to de-gas prior to bottling, we don’t anymore. I only check them to make sure that they are in the sweet spot and as we only rack once to tank, the wines are generally right where we want them.
We truly believe that the chardonnays from the Willamette Valley have the ability to age. How long? Well, what do you like in the wines you drink? Our first vintage of chardonnay was 2011 (140 cases BTW), recently Erica and I have gone back and tasted some of our early vintages to reflect on the decisions we made and the wine’s evolution. We have found some bottle variation which we definitely attribute to cork, but found most of the wines to be pretty fresh and youthful. The '11’s & '12’s are starting to show notes of evolution where as the '13’s & '14’s are tight and youthful.
There are plenty of great examples of Willamette Valley chardonnays that have aged well, made by folks who were truly dedicated to the varietal! Our intention is to make wines of balance that should ultimately age well. We are, much like the many producers we admire in this valley, absolutely obsessed and committed to the varietal. Ultimately the perfect drinking window for a wine is totally subjective. Erica and I tend to fall toward the earlier side int the 5-8 years from vintage.
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Thanks for your input. Loved your interview on the Oregon wine history archive podcast btw 
I don’t know if it is still the case, but Eyrie made very long aging Chardonnays during David Lett’s lifetime. My friend Fred Arterberry (RIP) organized some of our friends to help (I mostly ‘helped’ by eating grapes and staying out of the way) with harvest in the mid-1970s. Those Eyre Chardonnays easily aged 25+ years.
Did you try the Championship Bottle “Hard Promises” (in the quarantine offer). It’s right in that style.
Chardonnay is already the white grape of the Willamette Valley. Yes, Pinot Gris has made several wineries a truck load of money over the years, but it is clearly a cash flow wine given little respect in the vineyard and less in the cellar. Whereas the best Chardonnay in the Willamette Valley are given the royal treatment (from the producers who respect it! as it too is quickly being viewed and used as a money maker) in the vineyard and the cellar. Willamette Valley Pinot Gris will never achieve the level it does in Alsace or North Eastern Italy. A tiny group of chardonnay from the Willamette Valley WILL rise up to the greats of Burgundy.
Pinot Blanc, BTW, kills when it is farmed well and given attention in the cellar (there’s a trend developing here…) and there are a couple of killer sites out there. Crannell in the EAH is one of the very best.
Quick question: Last time you saw a $40 Willamette Valley Pinot Blanc? vs. Last time you saw a $40 Willamette Valley Chardonnay? 'nuf said.
Easily achieved through selection massale plantings. Diversity of plant material in a single block or having contiguous blocks with multiple clones that are picked at the same time! More ripe, less ripe, perfectly ripe=balance.
I think a vineyard that gives you ripe flavors at lower sugars is key. That’s the beauty of Oregon and certain parts of California.
Dave Lett, who turned me on to a Draper clone vineyard at Tualatin, used to say he could either look for cool part of a warm place in California or a warmer spot in a cool place like Oregon, and one thing Dave was always: cool.
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Humans have this desire to need something to look and taste perfect at every point, and I think that sometimes we forget that wine is fermented fruit, not the fruit itself. Too often we want golf-course vineyards, and picture perfect clusters, and the optimal lab numbers, and we forget that what is essential is that we are encouraging yeast, and a fermentation that produces something that is beautiful. The fruit ripeness needs to feed this, not feed our humanistic craving for sugar and ripe flavors. Diverse plantings can be maddening if you are looking for some sort of “ideal” but if you know your sight, and walk through it, and see where the vines that are always ahead are, and know that your vines that are always behind are also at a place that, together, makes something beautiful… it is easier to say yes, this is the right point. Wine is a translation of fruit through fermentation. The quality and nuance and complexity is important for the beginning, but you are looking for raw materials, not the end result.
Ken, loved your Crannel PB.
Love the optimism! Aim high.
My experience with aging Cameron Chards has been very positive…15+ years. Competitive with plenty of Burgs that are 2x+ of the price. I’ve got less experience aging yours (and Marcus’s) but the opening bids have mostly been excellent…again, toe-to-toe with plenty of Burgs.
Savvy buyers are catching on.
RT
Brian…big thanks for initiating this thread. I had a hunch this was going to be one to watch. And thanks to all the producers who have made this “must reading”.
The idea that grape for wine ripeness is different from grapes for table consumption is a good one. But all too often I taste wines where the winemaker had the idea ‘I ll pick at 21 brix and make a Chablis style wine’ and the wine tastes like acidic sauvignon blanc.
Clendenen and I found a vineyard in the Anderson Valley where the grapes ripened at 22/23 brix. Made wonderful wine and Raj bought most of it. Then the vineyard got old and the owners, who I theorized had another crop which they mostly smoked, never replanted.
Absolutely! Loving the enthusiasm from both the producers and enthusiasts on this thread.
Mel:
That’s true. Reading this thread, I was reminded of the attributes that, for me, define white wine… and agree sugar content can be a slippery slope.
Ken, thanks for posting!
Craig and Ken, Thank you very much for the feedback on this thread. The WS X-novo has certainly become a benchmark for me. Please keep up the great work. I need to get around popping an X-Novo Pinot Noir and see if it can live up to my lofty expectations.
Sean
We all work with different sites, vine ages and clones and have our own unique approach to the wines that we make. On the point of yield, our experience has been dramatically different than that of Marcus. 2012, as Marcus mentioned, was a low yielding vintage and many producers picked too late. This was followed by 2013 with modest but not heavy yields, 2014 gave a lighter crop, 2015 was larger, 2016 gave us a smaller crop again and then came 2017. 2017 was a slightly more classic Willamette Valley vintage with normal bud break, a warm, dry summer and cooling temps in September. Given the later nature of harvest in the Willamette Valley and Burgundy being earlier than us by over two weeks in 2017, I had the great opportunity to go work harvest for 2 weeks alongside Dominique Lafon. A hug thanks to my amazing wife and daughter for holding down the fort while I went on a learning mission. During my time in Burgundy with Dominique I had the opportunity to do everything from picking, processing the fruit, running press cycles and barreling down wines. I traveled between Meursault, Blagny and the Macon to the three Lafon Domaines as well as spent a day with the lovely family at Lafarge. My two biggest observations that vintage in France? Timing of picking and yields.
Who were the first Domaine’s to pick in Meursault that year? Arnaud Ente, Lalou Bize-Leroy, Roulot, Coche Dury and Comtes des Lafon.
The next spring in 2018 we reflected on our previous vintages here in the Willamette Valley and the experience I had in Burgundy. Our favorite chardonnay vintages here have always been the lower cropping ones, and with what I had experienced in Meursault, we decided to lower our yields in our Chardonnay vineyards. Working with our growers we decided to shoot thin aggressively. Everyone shoot thins or de-buds, but usually it’s for removing excess buds from one growing point. We set about reducing our crop through this process by 20-30% by removing additional shoots. Instead of, for example, 18-20 shoots per vine, we reduced that down to 14-16 shoots per vine in an 1100 vine per acre block. At veraison, when we typically thin the crop, there was very little thinning to do. At picking, our sites achieved what we had hoped for, appropriate sugars (potential alcohols 12.8%-13.2%), low PH’s, low malics, high TA’s and the intensity of flavor that we were striving for. The goal with extra shoot thinning wasn’t increased ‘ripeness,’ but increased intensity and concentration. As there is usually some extra fruit around the valley as we approach harvest, we grabbed a little from two Eola-Amity Hills sites to augment our increasing chardonnay production. These sites were ‘classically’ farmed, had hung a larger crop and then thinned at veraison to allow the vine a chance to ripen. Here we saw the vine struggling to build the sugars (12.1%-12.3% potential alcohol), higher PH’s, higher malics and lower TA’s.
2019 was a much cooler vintage than 2018. We set out with the same goals with each of our vineyards. Shoot thin aggressively and early to set a balanced crop that the vine will ripen all the way to harvest. We experienced nearly identical results compared to 2018 in all the sites using this protocol. We did have one site that did not follow it, hung lots of fruit and thinned at veraison. The results reaffirmed what we were seeing; higher PH, higher malics, lower TA’s and simple flavor profile.
Through these experiences, we feel that the key to making great chardonnay is lower yields. 2018 set the stage for how we will work with our growers to farm the Chardonnay vineyards we are so fortunate to work with. We will fine tune the yields in the beginning of the growing season to allow the vine to focus on fruit it is ripening and we will harvest, rather than leaving more with the intention of dropping it later.