2021 Hundred Suns Winery, Chardonnay, Old Eight Cut, Willamette Valley, Oregon.
This bottling of Grant Coulter and Renée Saint-Amour’s Hundred Suns, the Old Eight Cut Chardonnay, was their first white wine under their label, which then founded in 2015, and debuted with the 2019 vintage and this 2021, which I must admit I forgot a had tucked away is drinking lovely right now and shows off lots of extra complexity and depth from the added time in bottle, making it a real surprise treat. This steely, mineral toned, and pale straw/gold Chard, almost full bodied, gives a bright citrusy start and goes into richer apple, pear and peach fruits, adding a textural moth feel, subtle creaminess, along with hazelnut, clove spice, saline, apricot butter, delicate tropical essences and white blossoms. Good acidity still pulsates throughout this wine, which is pretty constant with the style and the year, allowing for restraint and transparency to shine here, it is a wine to enjoy with a meal, going great with poultry dishes and I really enjoyed it with a soft creamy French cheese. The Old Eight Cut Chardonnay grapes ere typically sourced, as the winery notes, from organically farmed vineyards in the Eola-Hills, which can include the Bracken Vineyard, which sits between 630-730 feet on a combination of volcanic soils (Nekia, Ritner, Witzel and Jory) of varying depths that shows in the unique mineral focus. Another along with Bracken, usually in the mix is the Koosah Vineyard, a stunning high-elevation site perched at 1,000 feet. Coulter adds that both lots were whole cluster pressed into 500 liter neutral puncheons, well seasoned French oak, and saw a natural slow indigenous fermentation, then the Chardonnay was allowed to mature with 11 months of sur lee aging, that Grant explains helped produced a wine with bright acid, stone fruit, and floral aromatics, which do indeed play roles on what Coulter calls a medium bodied and lively palate.
Hundred Suns, made by ex Beaux Freres winemaker Grant Coulter and his wife Renée Saint-Amour, is an exciting project and this Chardonnay joins their awesome lineup of Willamette Valley Pinots along with some exotic bottlings of Gamay, Grenache and recently a rare Willamette Valley Vidon Vineyard Syrah, with some of these efforts seeing whole cluster, carbonic fermentations and the use of terra-cotta amphora. Grant, who is from the Monterey Bay area, something I learned after meeting him briefly when I visited Beaux Freres at harvest time back in 2008, is one of my favorite Oregon winemakers and I have been thrilled with these Hundred Suns wines, once I found out about them. Coulter is also the head winemaker and vineyard manager at Flaneur Vineyards, where he makes some fabulous wines as well, including as expected some riveting Willamette Pinots, which I have been reviewing here for many years. This exceptionally well made hand crafted wine is a killer value, joining the Pinot version in the Old Eight Cut line, and I highly recommend scoring them both, as well as the very limited items at Hundred Suns, that I also suggest exploring, these upper end of the range of single vineyard Pinots, which are absolutely stunning, are some of the Willamette Valley’s most intriguing wines, along with the mentioned Gamay, that remains one of my favorites. I will say the Sequitur Vineyard, Ribbon Ridge AVA, Willamette Valley Pinot coming from Mike Etzel’s coveted home vineyard, of Beaux Freres fame, where as mentioned, Grant worked as head winemaker, is an absolute must have for Oregon Pinot and still a outstanding value, plus I love the early Hundred Suns Shea Vineyard Pinot and the newer bottlings of their Bednarik vineyard, which has become a signature wine in the lineup. The 2024 vintage has seen all new additions here that I look forward to trying, these include single vineyard Chards, a Meunier and a whole new set of Pinots, as well as a new “Rocks” Le Mani Syrah!
($35 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive