2023 Pearlstad Vineyard Chardonnay

$45.00

Fractal or crystalline
A taste of musical motifs
citrus salt snowflake

Pearlstad Vineyard, owned and operated by Ken Pearlman and Dana Baker, is an 18-acre vineyard planted exclusively to Chardonnay on a hidden and magical south facing slope in the Eola-Amity Hills. The vineyard sits above fossil-filled sandstone and siltstone dominated by Chehulpum silty loam with uplifted marine rock layers, a reminder of where the sea used to be.

The grapes were hand harvested on September 15th, 2023, as a field blend from 3 sections of the vineyard planted to 95,96 & Wente clones. Grapes were gently whole bunch pressed, then settled and racked to barrels for fermentation and aging. The wine was encouraged through malolactic fermentation and kept on lees until bottling in December 2024.

TASTING NOTES

Perfumed citrus, talc and peonies, crushed almonds, lemon balm, galangal and honey dew. Accompany me with Thai green curry or lemon chiffon pie or sitting in the slanting sun beneath a willow tree remembering the making of willow whistles in June – fresh green sweetness of phloem, cool and smooth just below the bark.

And there’s more here in this wine - fresh oats, book spine, sea glass, peaches, lanolin and Himalayan honey. Its shape is crystalline but also fractal – angled and repeating with a complex patterned geometry like a quartz coastline or a salt snowflake, tensioned and taught, ordered and infinite.