2017 St. Innocent Freedom Hill Chardonnay Willamette Valley

  The Freedom Hill Dijon clone Chardonnays are Meursault-like: darker fruit with a stony minerality and rich textures in the mouth. Mark struggled with the specific style for Freedom Hill Chardonnay until his visit to Burgundy and Chablis in 2003. There he tasted a grand cru Chablis fermented entirely in used barrels. Our chardonnay is now fermented in the same manner. Mark finally feels that he has captured the terroir of Freedom Hill . After settling, pure juice (no SO2) was barrel fermented with indigenous yeasts. The wine finished malolactic fermentation (wild) and was aged sur lees for eleven months entirely in used French oak barrels. It is unfined and lightly filtered before bottling.