Many people will skip over this portion and go straight to the red wines. That’s too bad, since the whites are often some of our best wines in any given vintage. But as they are in very dearth supply, it is probably better for those in the know to not share that knowledge!
Our Chardonnays are truly made in the tradition of the great white wines of Burgundy. Both Abbey Ridge and Clos Electrique vineyards are planted to very rare clones of Chardonnay not typically planted in either Oregon or California. The wines are fermented with indigenous wild yeasts from the respective vineyards and finished with a French yeast to assure dryness. Both wines from these single vineyards are fermented in older, nearly neutral French oak barrels and then left with the original yeast sediment for nearly 2 years in our cave which averages 57°F (14°C). They are bottled without filtration and generally have an aging potential of well over 10 years. On rare occasions, an individual barrel from the Clos Electrique vineyard rises to an unparalleled height in terms of aromatics, mouthfeel and length on the palate. In such a year, we bottle this wine separately. It’s name, Wadsworth, is after Teri, the white Burgundy aficionado in our family.
The Italian side of our clan (the Cameronis) also influences part of our white wine program. In this case the wines of Friuli and Alto Adige offer a model that works exquisitely with much of our fruit. The Pinot Bianco (given the nomer “Giovanni”) is fermented in stainless steel, typically in 3 different lots with appropriate aromatic yeasts, and bottled in its exuberant youth in the early Spring. Cameroni’s blended wine (given the nomer “Giuliano”) consists of the grapes Friulano, Pinot bianco, Pinot grigio and Auxerrois with a small bit of Moscato for floral high tones. This wine tends to be finished with higher acidity and given extensive bottle age (often up to a year) for an elegant extremely food worthy wine.
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It is important to note that Cameron strives to produce white wines of moderate alcohol content. The Cameroni wines typically finish between 12.0 and 12.8% alcohol while the Chardonnays tend to range between 12.5 and 13.0% alcohol.