2021 00 Wines Chardonnay Seven Springs

The 2021 Chardonnay Seven Springs is delicate and nuanced, with hints of raw almond and crushed stone complicating lemon oil and suggestions of pine. Luxuriously smooth and round, this impresses with its textural depths and balance of salty minerals to ripe apple and candied lime. It finishes long and potent yet also remarkably fresh with reverberating acidic tension that keeps the mouth watering for more. This simply stunning, tenacious Chardonnay will enjoy a long life and broad drinking window. Refined in 51% Damy barrels with an extremely light toast.

Fruit sourced from two blocks in the Seven Springs Vineyard: the South Block H (Dijon clone 96) and the main part of the vineyard on Lone Star Road, Block 5 (field blend – old shot Wente and Dijon clone 76). Macerated before pressing, no SO 2 until after malolactic conversion. Tasted blind. Medium lemon in colour. Neutral nose with apple and ripe yellow pear. Richly textured palate with elevated acidity and leesy, autolytic toastiness that evolves on the finish. Excellent balance. (SCJ)

A bright yellow hue, the 2021 Chardonnay Seven Springs Vineyard is vibrant with great energy and focus, offering notes of lime zest, crushed stone, flinty earth, and white peach. Medium-bodied with outstanding electric energy throughout, it has a more linear, focused feel and a long, persistent finish. Drink it over the next 10 or more years. 00 Wines, founded by husband-and-wife duo Katherine and Christopher Hermann, exclusively produce Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. They derived the name “00” from numerology and say it represents true and absolute potential. Their first vintage was in 2015, and in 2017 they moved to a shared winemaking facility that they operate out of today. Katherine takes charge of the creative direction with packaging and communications. Her background in marketing brought her to New York City and Boulder, Colorado, working for technology startups, before arriving in the Willamette Valley. Prior to establishing 00 Wines, Christopher was a legal advisor for nearly 40 years for many of the top names in the wine and spirits industry, practicing environmental law. They are inspired by the great wines of Burgundy and implement many Burgundian techniques, advised by their consultant Pierre Millemann and their winemaker Wynne Peterson-Nerdry. Last year I was not able to taste their reds, but it proved to be well worth the wait. They display another level of purity and depth from truly exceptional sites. Also on the horizon for the 00 Wines team are two relatively new projects in both Burgundy and Champagne, which I will be able to share with our readers when I taste them in September of this year.