Information

Winemaker 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.

Wine Data

Varietal Composition

100% Chardonnay

AVA

100% Willamette Valley
Sub-appelation Composition
- 52% Chehalem Mountains
- 35% Yamhill-Carlton
- 13% Eola-Amity Hills

Aging and Cooperage

16 months in French oak barrels; 18% new

Cases Produced

228

Enjoy

Tendril wines are made “low and slow,” just like great food: we give them time to reach their full potential at the winery, aging 16 months minimum in barrel and 6-18 months more in bottle before release. If you prefer aging, 3-12 years from vintage date is ideal for our Chardonnay. Serve chilled at 50-55F or after 30 minutes in the fridge.

Pairings

seared sea scallops, crab/avocado salad, roasted butternut squash

Purchase

This wine is sold out.

Downloadables

Accolades

The Pour Fool

Best American Pinot Noir

Tendril Wine Cellars: A STUNNING 180 Degree Reversal of A Paradigm

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.

Wine Enthusiast

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.

Tendril Cellars 2014

Information

Winemaker Tasting Notes

Wine Data

Enjoy

Pairings