2007 Willamette Valley Vineyards Dijon Clone Chardonnay

As many of you may remember, The Oregon Wine Blog was granted the opportunity to write the first pre-release review of Willamette Valley Vineyard's 2008 Pinot Gris. Well, Christine from WVV has done it again and sent us a sneak peak of their 2007 Dijon Clone Chardonnay. You won't be able to pick up a bottle of this until around Thanksgiving, but you can certainly get excited in the mean time. So, to preface this article, this is a review of a comped wine. With that out of the way, let's get to the review:


This chardonnay pours a honey-yellow and gives hues of pear and floral notes. Mouthfeel is creamy (not quite buttery) and tastes of pineapple and pear with a finish of apple. After looking at the accompanied tasting notes, it looks like I identified the majority of what WVV was hoping for. The only components I didn't pick up on were hues of coconut and citrus. Note, however, that these might start to shine through by the time this wine is publicly available.

As shown in the photo above, we also decided to pair this with an herbed pork chop with gorgonzola and walnut butter from Lorraine Turner & Linda Doeser's Barbecue cookbook. While the accompanying tasting notes suggest pairing this wine with mostly white fish, we broke the mold a bit. The chardonnay paired perfectly with this dish as it both complemented and cleansed the gorgonzola and walnut butter.

Before I wrap this up, I'd like to say that I'm very picky when it comes to chardonnays. WVV, however, is one of those few exceptions as they have captured the essence of what a northwest chardonnay should taste like. If you have yet to venture into true northwest dijon clone chardonnays, WVV's offering is as good as it gets. At around $18 for their 2006 vintage, you can't go wrong.

A huge thank you goes out once again to both Christine and Willamette Valley Vineyards for being so gracious.