2021 Justice Vineyard Chardonnay, Eola-Amity Hills

The 2021 Chardonnay Justice Vineyard opens with heavy matchstick aromas over a core of ripe lemon, orange and wildflower notes. The medium-bodied palate has expansive flavors, focused acidity and a long, shimmery finish. It will take plenty of time in the cellar to unwind.

A bright yellow hue, the 2021 Chardonnay Justice Vineyard pushed reduction a bit and will need time, and it certainly needs a decant if opening now. It is packed with gunflint as well as creamy aromas of quince, lemongrass, and fresh apricot. Medium-bodied and so well-balanced, with notes of white pepper, nothing sticks out on the phenomenal palate, but it drives for days. A stunning white, it’s hard to spit out. This demands time in cellar, although the palate is already showing what this wine and site are capable of achieving. Drink 2025-2040. Walter Scott was founded in 2008 by Erica Landon and her husband Ken Pahlow. Their first vintage was produced in 2009 out of Patricia Green Cellars, then at Evening Land, where Ken worked alongside Dominique Lafon. This clearly had an influence on the wines of Walter Scott, where they began producing Chardonnay in 2011. The next year they moved to their current winery space, which is located in front of the Justice Vineyard of the Eola-Amity Hills. They continue to raise the bar across their portfolio and are producing exceptional wines with purity and balance. The wines for this report were tasted at the winery with Ken and his family, and they do not disappoint in the slightest. These are no-question Burgundian-inspired wines, with a reductive style, though for my taste, they are some of the best wines pushing the bar higher and higher in the Eola-Amity Hills.

The 2021 Chardonnay Justice Vineyard is not shy with flinty reduction, ripe with pear and tropical fruit of papaya and melon. The palate is long and floral, with ripe peach, orange flowers, and oak spice that frame the fruit attractively. Drink 2025-2035. Walter Scott was founded in 2008 by Erica Landon and her husband Ken Pahlow. Their first vintage was produced in 2009 out of Patricia Green Cellars, then at Evening Land, where Ken worked alongside Dominique Lafon. This clearly had an influence on the wines of Walter Scott, where they began producing Chardonnay in 2011. The next year they moved to their current winery space, which is located in front of the Justice Vineyard of the Eola-Amity Hills. They continue to raise the bar across their portfolio and are producing exceptional wines with purity and balance. The majority of these wines were tasted out of the barrel during my visit to the winery in July of 2022.