2014 Tendril Chardonnay
Tasting Notes
Vibrant aromas of Bosc pear, Gravenstein apple, kiwi fruit, clove, slight cardamom and Meyer lemon. The palate is fresh and flavorful, showing lots of white peach, pear, kiwi fruit, pineapple, and limeade with incredible length and balance.
Pairings
seared sea scallops, crab/avocado salad, roasted butternut squash
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Wine Data
Varietal Composition
100% Chardonnay
AVA
100% Willamette Valley
52% Chehalem Mountains
35% Yamhill-Carlton
13% Eola-Amity Hills
Aging and Cooperage
16 months in French oak barrels; 18% new
Cases Produced:
228
Recommendations
Best American Pinot Noir
The Pour Fool – 2014 Tendril Chardonnay, 2014 Tendril Pretender White Pinot Noir, 2014 Tendril Extrovert Pinot Noir, 2013 Tendril C~Note Pinot Noir, 2013 Tendril TightRope Pinot Noir
Tendril is simply the best American winery for Pinot Noir that I have ever come across; even including all those Sonoma and Mt. Eden and San Luis Obispo wineries I love.
I’m not going to climb on this old horse again.
Who am I kidding? Of course, I am…
People who have read The Pour Fool know my views on Pinot Noir and, in particular, Oregon Pinot Noir. For anyone who doesn’t, here it is: Not a fan. If I buy a Pinot, it’s A) probably for someone else, or B) from Burgundy or California and the latter about fifty times more than the former. Not really a fan of Chardonnay, either, having worn it out by sheer repetition, so when it comes to Burgundian varietals, I’m kinda out. There ARE a few – a VERY few – Oregon Pinots that I’ve consumed and enjoyed – Stangeland, Purple Hands, Brickhouse(!), Knudsen, a couple from Patricia Green, and the Mac-Daddy, Ken Wright Cellars, for which I would almost pass up an average Cab or Malbec or Sangio or Syrah. Or most any other varietal that’s not Pinot.
But, for almost the entire going-on-28 years I have worked in the wine trade, geeky pals of mine have been insisting that I would eventually wind up in a passionate lip-lock – of an intensity suggestive of a fanatical Middle Eastern religious cult – with Pinot Noir. Because, as almost all of them have said, “Everybody does, eventually.“
Ain’t happened.
Not gonna.
So, when I said I wasn’t going to climb on this old horse…well, I’ve failed again. Normally, this disdain for Pinot Noir would go on for pages. But, this time, I am forced – by what little shame I possess and an antiquated sense of fairness that is unseemly, here in the Trump Era – to acknowledge a YUGE and revelatory shift in my personal Pinot Paradigm, occasioned by the arrival, via FedEx, of a large box containing a regulation slew of shocking, stunning, seismic wines from Tony Rynders, the former winemaker for Domaine Serene (yet another Oregon winery I mostly ignored), working under the rubric of his new venture, Tendril Wine Cellars.
28 November 2018The Pour Fool92 points
Wine Enthusiast – 2014 Tendril Chardonnay
Sophisticated in every way, this engaging, complex effort begins with fresh apple fruit then layers in lemon curd and sliced orange components. There’s a touch of beeswax and a creamy mouthfeel that stretches on the finish.
1 August 2017Wine Enthusiast