'Weightless power is what defines the 2019 Chardonnay Freedom Hill Vineyard. It offers textural breadth, expansive flavors and incredible length, with singular aromas combining pure citrus with youthful flintiness. The palate swells with salty, limey tang before fleshing out to savory nutty tones, and the finish just goes on and on. This pure, singular expression is compelling, even at this early stage, and will offer more with time in the cellar.' (98 points)
Erin Brooks, The Wine Advocate '
'The 2019 Chardonnay Seven Springs Vineyard is the last vintage of a single-vineyard Seven Springs for Walter Scott. At this stage, it opens with matchstick and roasted almond aromas, with an undercurrent of quince and savory spices. The palate manages linear tang and saline, with broader, nuttier character. It has a satiny texture and finishes with tremendous length—an elegant, age-worthy last iteration!' (97 points)
Erin Brooks, The Wine Advocate
Ken Pahlow's single-vineyard Chardonnays join mature Cristom Pinots and the most smashing 00 cuvées as our favorite wines from the 'Valley. In a region still developing its reputation for artisanal whites, these offer compelling evidence that, after Burgundy, this may be the choicest spot for Chardonnay anywhere.
Ken's whites prioritize purity, textural finesse, and site-specificity. Brilliant reductive winemaking centers them. Walter Scott reduction reminds us of the light, delicate, flinty reduction you find at Roulot. It's a high-toned, salt-and-citrus kind of reduction rather than the thick, honeycomb-y sort you find at Coche-Dury, among other addresses.
If you like your Chards to trade above all on vitality and detail, consider short-listing these. And if you're a lover of superb reductive winemaking (most of you!), they are musts. True class acts here.
Cheers,
Jason
