Audeant Wines - Chardonnay "Seven Springs Vineyard" 2021 (750ml)
Price: $89.99
| Producer | Audeant Wines |
| Country | United States |
| Region | Oregon |
| Varietal | Chardonnay |
| Vintage | 2021 |
| Sku | 201374 |
| Size | 750ml |
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Audeant Wines Description
In the late summer of 2015, a last minute change in plans led a couple from Chicago to Oregon’s Willamette Valley. They made an appointment at one of their favorite wineries, a bottle of which they shared on their first date. Over the course of a three and a half hour tasting, only two and a half hours longer than planned, they came to know a young winemaker there who shared his enthusiasm for the world of wine while pulling cork after cork. A mutual love of culinary and vinous experience was exchanged along with parallel perspectives about fine wine, its crafting and enjoyment.
They left finding themselves struck with the energy and beauty of the valley, its wines, and the possibility of a life they never dreamt of. Leaning on winemaker Andrew Riechers’ relationships with farmers and vineyard owners throughout the valley, a small brand was formed around a handful of rows, in a few of the most challenging and compelling vineyard sites in the Willamette Valley. Whether older own rooted vines, or unirrigated and organically farmed at high elevation, we believe the margins are where place and time are reflected most beautifully. We venture to risk in these places and in our lives as we dare to place our goals higher than seems reasonable.
After moving from Eugene, Oregon where he grew up, winemaker Andrew Riechers learned to love cellar work in Santa Barbara assisting in the production of bulk wines in a large facility. He quickly realized that there was much more connected and lovely work out there in the wine world, and he was hired as the cellar master at Summerland Winery. He then moved along to be the first employee at Sanguis, where his idealistic bent toward the craft of winemaking was cultivated. After four years in California, Oregon called him home where he assisted Jim Prosser at JK Carriere Wines for two years. The following year was divided between Ted Lemon’s project in New Zealand, Burn Cottage, and Burgundy in the Haute Cote working for Claire Naudin at Domaine Naudin Ferrand. Finally, he spent five years as the assistant winemaker at Antica Terra and Lillian with Maggie Harrison prior to joining and founding Audeant Wines with Proprietor, Teal Walker, in 2016.
Seven Springs was originally planted in 1983 on an east facing slope in the Eola-Amity Hills. Over the years it has produced some of Oregon’s most iconic wines in the deft hands of a great lineage of stewards, currently Sashi Moorman and Raj Parr of Evening Land. It is farmed biodynamicaly without irrigation by Jessica Cortell. They are grateful to work with one half acre of Chardonnay on the south ridge.
2021 could have possessed any combination of a wide range of challenges not smoke related and all our winemaking friends would have dropped to their knees and thanked the stars. To have lost something so precious the year before, one of a finite number of vintages in a life, was devastating. To have it followed by what I’ll term to be a neo-classically perfect vintage felt like a balancing of universal fates. Our valley’s classic cool nights anchored the vines as they worked. There was heat, concentrated, record breaking heat, yes, but this is the new world and we’ve spent the last decade and more listening and learning. We farm through a more sensitive lens, we make wiser, more forward thinking decisions in the winery. We work at elevation near the cool air of forests, on east facing slopes just for summers like this one.
When the wines became clear in the cellar we saw a shimmering intensity, catching the light from every angle. Luxurious and fine, destined for long life, but brimming with an infectious joy on day one. An ode to sunshine yes, but to forests who drink the rain deeply as well, if this is the new way, lead on. Fruit from seven rows of this hallowed estate produced just four barrels of shimmering golden tension. A mineral nerve weaves through layers of sun drenched lemon and airy custard.
Wine Advocate: 93+ Points
The 2021 Chardonnay Seven Springs Vineyard is flinty and reductive to begin and requires plenty of time and air to reveal deeper tones of nuts, cheese rind, jasmine and peach. The light-bodied palate is focused and bright, while its perfumed flavors unfurl very slowly and suggest this has more to reveal after 2-3+ years in the cellar.
