tasting / savor / Oregon Chardonnay
OREGON CHARDONNAY: ADVANCING SERENELY
Andrew Jefford introduces a high-scoring tasting shared with Anthony Rose and David Williams in which all three panelists found much to enjoy in a range of “complex and assured wines of subtlety and finesse” from a corner of the Pacific Northwest that is clearly heading in the right direction
O
regon advances. Wine-grape production in this US West Coast state soared by 53 percent
in 2021 over the small 2020 vintage, by 9 percent compared to 2019, and by 14 percent compared to 2018. More impressive still was the value of that production: up 72 percent in 2021 compared to 2020 (and up 14 percent compared to 2019). Up, up, up… Drinkers seem to be enjoying these wines. Ask A&B Vintners. When I lived in the UK in the early 2000s, this small- scale UK wine importer was a close-focus Burgundy specialist. Then Burgundy exploded. A&B turned to Oregon to find more wine. “Customers love them,” says buying director Simon Davies. “They play well to European palates. We ration almost all of our Burgundies, but customers can buy Oregon in case quantities.” Davies has visited Oregon seven times in seven years, and A&B now imports 26 different Oregon producers. “I’m amazed by the sheer amount of potentially good land,” he says. “There are entire hill systems undeveloped as yet. Lots of suitable soils: marine sediments with volcanic overlays. You have exchange of ideas, inward investment, new clonal diversity—and Oregon is basically a climate-change winner. Most August days are just pleasantly warm, and the great advantage Oregon has over Burgundy is that you can just pick when you want. The potential alcohol gets to 12.5% and just sits there, not going anywhere, and you have this wonderful natural acidity. The 2022s were picked close to Halloween.” Okay, it’s mostly Pinot so far; some 60 percent of the 41,899 acres (16,955ha) of vineyards are planted with Pinot—and we will be tasting Oregon Pinots in a
210 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 79 | 2023
future issue of The World of Fine Wine. Significantly, though, average prices for Chardonnay fruit in 2021 were higher than the average prices for Pinot, even though it occupies only 2,724 acres (6,731ha). The vast Willamette Valley AVA (5,360 sq miles [13,900 sq km])—an often bucolically green central valley running from the Columbia River in the north down to Eugene in the south—is where most of that Chardonnay is to be found, especially in its more intensely planted northern part. This AVA encloses another 11 nested AVA subregions, and these are the names you will increasingly see on labels: Tualatin Hills, Chehalem Mountains (which includes the sub- subregional AVAs of Laurelwood District and Ribbon Ridge), Yamhill Carlton, Dundee Hills, McMinnville, Eola-Amity Hills, Van Duzer Corridor, Mount Pisgah Polk County Oregon, and, farther south, Lower Long Tom. Simon Davies particularly admires the Eola-Amity Hills, which, he claims, is “the epicenter for Chardonnay. The cold wind comes in every afternoon from the ocean through the Van Duzer corridor and cools everything down by 4pm, whereas
SIMON DAVIES CLAIMS EOLA-AMITY IS “THE EPICENTER FOR CHARDONNAY.” BUT IT HAS NO MONOPOLY ON QUALITY; FINE CHARDONNAY BUBBLES UP THROUGHOUT THE WILLAMETTE
THESE OREGON CHARDONNAYS— AREN’T BURGUNDY; NOR SHOULD THEY BE; WE WANT SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM OREGON. THEY ARE PURE, LIMPID, AND CONVINCING
Dundee and the Chehalem cool only between 5 and 6pm.” (The name Eola comes from the Greek mythological figure of Aeolus, the keeper of the winds.) As our tasting showed, though, Eola-Amity doesn’t have a monopoly on quality; fine Chardonnay bubbles up throughout the Willamette.
Assurance, subtlety, and finesse On my sheet, this was an exciting tasting, with no fewer than 24 wines scoring 90 points and above, led by nine lofty achievers. Three wines at both 93 and 94 points, two 95s, and a 96 all constitute “outstanding wine of great beauty and articulacy,” according to the WFW rubric. These Oregon Chardonnays— complex and assured wines of subtlety and finesse—aren’t Burgundy; they don’t have the same vinosity and sinew, nor the same combination of nerviness and sappiness dovetailed with richness; and we have yet to track their full aging potential. They shouldn’t be Burgundy, though; we want something different from Oregon. They are pure, limpid, and convincing, with autumnal orchard fruits, with fine textures, with serene
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