Lavinea Lazy River Vineyard Chardonnay 2016
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Enthusiast
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James -
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Spirits
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Winemaker Notes
#56 Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Cellar Selections of 2019
Brilliant golden straw with a shimmering silver edge. The aromas are open and complex, perfumed with lemon curd, quince, white flowers and honeyed white peaches with hints of cloves. Lively and vibrant on the tongue, with a lovely creaminess, the citrus and flinty notes are precise and harmoniously knitted as they travel across the palate with a tightening long finish. This is a wine that is enjoyable now and will gain complexity as it ages.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine was barrel fermented in 20% new French oak. It's racy, inviting and aromatic, with sharp flavors of lemon, gooseberry, lime and cantaloupe. Tart and stylish, it's built for aging, though immediately enjoyable. Drink now–2028.
Cellar Selection -
James Suckling
Some grilled nuts, a mealy edge and a bright array of yellow peaches and lemons, framed in gently nutty complexity. The palate is beautifully fleshy and smoothly styled with a long, plush and polished core of fruit to close. Drink now.
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Wine Spectator
Polished and supple, with delicately complex and alluring pear and star fruit flavors, accented by crushed stone and spice notes. Drink now through 2021. 220 cases made.
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Wine & Spirits
Leading with scents of roasted nuts and golden apple, this wine is hemmed in by oak, though the sunniness of the 2016 vintage bursts through that oak frame with time in the glass. Unresolved for now, this needs six months or more in the cellar. (220 cases)
Other Vintages
2017- Vinous
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Wine
Lavinea’s definition means “of the vineyard.” Lavenia is committed to advancing the reputation of Oregon Pinot Noir and Chardonnay by bringing to the attention of the world the Willamette Valley’s finest vineyard sites. Encompassing 5 vineyards; Tualatin Estate, Lazy River, Nysa, Elton, and Temperance Hill.
Tualatin Estate Vineyard, established in 1973, is one of the oldest and most respected vineyard sites in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Wine grapes from this 145-acre vineyard have produced world-renowned wines for over 40 years. Tualatin is the only vineyard to have won the Best of Show for both the red and white categories at the London International Wine Competition in the same year. Tualatin’s Pinot Noir captured the Governor’s Trophy, Oregon’s most prestigious wine award, two years consecutively in 1994 and 1995. This is a feat unduplicated by any Oregon winery.
Lazy River Vineyard lies on the steep south facing slope of Mt. Richmond in the Northwest Willamette Valley, three and one half miles from Yamhill, Oregon. From the top of the hill one looks down to the mixed terrain, interlocking puzzle pieces of woods, rolling meadows, grape vines and ponds. The land is separated north from south by a meandering small river, which by August is typically dry.
Nysa Vineyard sits at 620-780 feet elevation in the Dundee Hills of Oregon’s northern Willamette Valley. Nysa spans 41 acres of volcanic Jory soil with basalt bedrock 8 to 12 feet below the surface. The high percentage of clay combines with soil depth to hold moisture late into the season, permitting dry farming.
In 2007 Elton Vineyards was named one of Oregon’s top ten vineyards by Wine Press Northwest, and in 2006 Wine & Spirits listed it as one of the five key vineyards in the new Eola-Amity Hills American Viticultural Area. Owned by Dick and Betty O’Brien, the vineyard was planted on land inherited from Betty’s parents, Elton and Peggy Ingram – hence the name Elton Vineyards and the address on Ingram Lane. The first five acres of wine-grapes were planted in 1983 by the OBriens. The vineyard now includes sixty acres planted on east-southeast slopes of the Eola Hills, just west of Hopewell, in Yamhill County, in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA. The elevation rises from 250-500 feet, and the vineyard soil is primarily Jory and Nekkia.
Perched at very high elevation above Bethel Heights Vineyard overlooking down the mouth of the Van Duzer Corridor, Temperance Hill is truly on the fringe of grape growing boundaries. This second generation vineyard was first planted in 1981 by the Koo family on what is believed to be the remnants of an ancient volcano. Dai Crisp, one of the pioneers of organic grape growing in the Willamette Valley took over management in 1999 and began farming it in accordance with Oregon Tilth Organic Certification standards. It’s high and cool location produces wines of exception, providing excellent growing conditions for Pinot Noir often resulting in outstanding wines with tremendous aging potential. Nicknamed “the staircase vineyard”, we are proud to be amongst the twenty-two wineries that source fruit from this amazing site. We share it’s it’s mid-step, between the blocks of Bergström and Adelsheim, with glorious south facing slopes.
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.
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.