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Inviting aromas of honeysuckle, chamomile and magnolia over apricot, candied lemon and beeswax, lifted by slate and wet stone. The broad palate layers white peach, quince, meringue and lemongrass with a thread of salted caramel and juicy, bright acidity.
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Close100% Chardonnay
Food pairings: Roasted halibut, lobster bisque and soft-ripened cheeses.
Winemaking: The fruit was whole-cluster pressed, and the juice was fermented in French oak barrels with native yeasts. Malolactic fermentation happened spontaneously and went to completion. The lees were stirred once a week for six months, and after twelve months the wine was racked into very neutral oak. After twenty months in barrel in total, it was moved gently by compressed gas to tank for blending, then bottled by gravity. The 2021 vintage brought relief after the smoke of 2020: the summer heat-dome events did little harm, September rains refreshed the vines, and very cool nights gave clean, ripe fruit with balanced acidity, big aromatics and full flavors from somewhat smaller yields.
Vineyards and terroir: The Laurelwood Chardonnay blends Ponzi's LIVE Certified Sustainable Avellana and Aurora vineyards with the Paloma Vineyard, all on Laurelwood soil in the Laurelwood District AVA on the northern ridge of the Chehalem Mountains. Here a fine, windblown silt called loess lies over ancient fractured basalt, and in 2020 the Laurelwood District became America's first appellation defined by its geology. The Ponzis and their neighbors worked for a decade to win its recognition.
Family and history: In 1969 Dick Ponzi left a career designing rides for Disneyland and moved his family to Oregon, convinced the Willamette Valley could make cool-climate wines to rival the world's best. With Nancy Ponzi he founded the state's third winery, planted Chardonnay at the estate in 1970, and went on to produce the first commercial Pinot Gris in the United States and to help found LIVE sustainability certification. Their daughter Luisa studied in Beaune, became the first non-French woman to earn the Brevet Professionnel d'Oenologie et Viticulture, and returned in 1993 as the winery's second-ever winemaker, planting Dijon clones and shaping its modern Chardonnay. Champagne Bollinger acquired Ponzi in 2021, its first property outside France, and Luisa handed the title of winemaker to Max Bruening in 2024.
In the pictures: The entrance to Ponzi Vineyards near Sherwood, Oregon (photo: M.O. Stevens, 2013, CC BY-SA 3.0). Dick and Nancy Ponzi with their three children at the winery (photo: Ponzi Vineyards Collection, Linfield College, CC BY-SA 4.0).
