Have you tried Chardonnay from Willamette Valley of Oregon yet?

If you are a Chardonnay fan than you should. In our view, it has the terroir hallmarks that make it distinctly Willamette Valley Chardonnay, and some examples may even challenge the wines of the famous French village of Meursault.

While some producers make delicious Chards already, others, even some well-known producers, have ways to go. We hope to taste better wines from them in the future.

The owner and winemaker of Roco is Rollin Soles, and he's been making wines in Willamette Valley for over 30 years, at first as winemaker for Argyle and since 2013 solely focused on Roco winery.

The grapes for 2015 Chardonnay came from Knudsen Vineyard located in Dundee Hills AVA. We were excited to taste it because we still remember how much we liked the wines Rollin made their fruit for Argyle.

The 2015 growing season was one of those warm, sunny experiences that all winemakers desire in the often challenging Willamette Valley. It helped the fruit to get to optimum ripeness. The cool and wet events with some cloudiness at the end of the growing season helped the acid to bounce back, lift the character and provide a nice zip of flavor.
Enough dancing around and let's get to wine!

We were a bit surprised when we opened a bottle because we could only sense buttery and oaky notes. This wine needs to breathe to impress just like a woman needs foreplay to fall in love with you.

We let it warm up close to red wine temperature and breath for about 30 minutes, and that's when the wine magic was released.

The aromas of apple, lemon, vanilla, and touch of white blossom reflected the warm growing season and infused us with a summer mood.

The flavor of crisp apple pie with vanilla-lemon crust, minerality and light buttery note finished the job. It sent us back to a warm and sunny afternoons of Willamette Valley in 2015. Roco Chardonnay
has excellent structure, substantial body and luscious ripe fruit balanced by fresh acidity. It might just be the wine that can unite Old World and New World wine lovers.

Here's Chardonnay Fans Challenge: try this wine and let us know what you think. Do you think this is more Old World or New World Chard, or both?

By the way, this is not a sponsored content, and we bought our own bottle.