Uncorked: Chehalem Winery deftly fine-tunes chardonnay

Katie Santora always has a plan.

The winemaker at Oregon’s Chehalem Winery has worked 10 vintages, texting and calling her vineyard team on a daily basis. The whims of Mother Nature can be fickle in Oregon, and she wants to be dialed in to what’s going on in the vineyard.

There was a winter day when the snow was so heavy it stopped traffic and closed tasting rooms. Recent growing seasons have featured a global pandemic that limited contact with employees, a wildfire-inducing heat wave and drought conditions. There also will be the inevitable fall rain that causes more of a shrug than a panic from Oregon winemakers.

Nothing comes easy, yet winemakers continue to turn out some of the most interesting and delicious chardonnay in the New World. What makes their version of chardonnay so enticing is that each is unique. Perhaps it’s the rebel-like mentality of nonconformist winemakers that doesn’t allow Oregon chardonnay to be placed into a formulaic box where it easily can be picked out of a tasting lineup.

Unique chardonnay combined with a charming interpretation of pinot gris makes Oregon an amazing place to explore a wide variety of white wines.

“You don’t come to Oregon thinking it’s going to be a normal vintage,” Santora said. “I think 2018 was an anomaly, where we could leave the fruit out as long as we needed, and it wouldn’t turn too sweet or too acidic. It was really easy-ish.

“The amount of planning I did and most winemakers in the fall did for the 2022 harvest, we thought it would not be ripe enough or be botrytis-ridden fruit,” she said. “It ended up being really nice though. We really have to work closely with the vineyard team. They are so on what is happening with the weather. If rain comes and the fruit is not ripe enough, if it’s misty and not a torrential downpour, that changes what to do in the vineyard. We know that in the fall, at harvest time, rain is coming, it’s not an if but a when. We work closely to mitigate what will happen when it does.”

The Stoller Wine Group, of which Chehalem is part, also includes Chemistry, History and Canned Oregon. The chardonnay produced at Stoller, Chehalem and Chemistry is in a Goldilocks zone as vineyards come of age.

“I think Oregon chardonnay is amazing, and I love Oregon chardonnay,” Santora said. “I think the climate and age of the vines is really compelling to the chardonnay story in Oregon. We started to plant the Dijon clones in the ’90s, and they do better with the cool climate. At 20 years old, they are coming into their own.”

While flavors and styles vary in Oregon chardonnay, Karl Weichold, the estate winemaker at Stoller, found a red line running through the varietal.

“Diversity is great for a variety, but I also get wary of it,” Weichold said. “If you taste a bad chardonnay from Oregon, and think all are like that, your desire to taste more might be diminished. I’m finding a common thread that even on the weightier chardonnay there’s an acid drive.”

Just like Santora, Weichold starts to work with the vineyard crews early in the growing season. Even though he’s only worked at Stoller since 2020, he’s already established an intimate identity with the site.

“We compare vintages to past ones, and put the right picking logistics plan in place,” Weichold said. “We know how to triage at-risk blocks. It seems we are chill about it, and know what is coming and how to plan for it. Triage is us looking at the characteristics of the site and what might pose the most risk for the fruit. If I have an undulating set of hills … in a vineyard, then cool air would pool at a certain point or it perhaps doesn’t drain well. We know if a root stock might not be thinned down well or might not get ripe without risk of rot. There’s a number of different ways to address risk in the vineyard.”

Because they are in tune with the vineyards, adjustments are easier to make. Even as summers have trended hotter, Oregon pinot gris still has retained its acidic frame.

“The pinot gris we make up here retains a lot of acid,” Weichold said. “Especially on sites you can bring in early. Unlike other domestic versions that can be broad, soapy wines, you don’t see that in Oregon. If you find the right vineyard and watch the line of preserving acidity, yet be phenologically ripe, that’s a magical site. It also produces 1.5 to two times the load of pinot noir, so the accountants love it. To me, it’s one of the more straightforward wines to make, because you don’t have to tinker around with it too much.”

While Weichold chuckled with gallows humor that there’s no such thing as “a normal vintage” anymore, what has remained a constant is that Oregon’s white wines are loaded with character and driven by fresh acidity.

• James Nokes has been tasting, touring and collecting in the wine world for several years. Email him at jamesnokes25@yahoo.com.

TASTING NOTES

Chehalem Willamette Valley Pinot Gris 2022 ($20): Pronounced floral aromatics of gardenia blossom and fleshy peaches. There’s peach and dried apricot flavors and a mouth-filling lemon note.

Chemistry Pinot Gris 2022 ($17): Loaded with tropical fruit flavors: playful papaya and mango.

Stoller Family Estate Dundee Hills Chardonnay 2022 ($25): The mossy wet-rock flavors are the star here as they play off vibrant lemon and tangy citrus notes.

Stoller Family Estate Dundee Hills Brut Sparkling Wine 2021 ($40): The inaugural bottling tapped into a series of savory flavors: ginger, sesame and salty brioche bun. The pear fruit flavors are refreshingly crisp.