Our tasting impressions
Vincent's Royer Chardonnay is bursting with energy and the dynamic flavors that only volcanic soil can produce. The wine is uber fresh and wonderfully crisp. The fruity, floral and mineral notes merge effortlessly, and I adore the complex, salty, umami finish. Vincent suggests enjoying it now but also holding some to experience it with added dimension. While this lovely and delicious Chardonnay is distinctly Willamette, it somehow makes me think of a really fine Saint Aubin from Burgundy.
About this wine
Royer Vineyard Chardonnay is from rocky, red volcanic soils high on the windy west side of the Eola-Amity Hills AVA in the Willamette Valley. Owned by Mark Royer, who planted Chardonnay from a mix of Dijon clones, starting in vintage 2019. Cold winds from the Van Duzer Corridor across the valley are another defining element of the terroir.
Dry farmed grapes are picked on the earlier side of ripeness. Whole clusters are pressed and fermented naturally in French oak barrels, of which 20% are new. The wine is on the lees for 18 months and unfiltered before producing 125 cases.
About the Grape
Chardonnay is the most popular wine variety in the US. Winemakers love the green-skinned grape as well because it’s so easy to grow and adaptive to many different production techniques. Grown everywhere, Chardonnay’s greatest expressions are widely believed to come from Burgundy. Indeed, this is believed to be where the grape originated. Chablis, in Northern Burgundy and Champagne also offer superlative examples of Chardonnay.
Vincent's Vintage Report
2022 started with great alarm. Bud break started in mid-April as usual. But then we had a bad, freak April snow and then a hard frost, which affected some early growing vineyards and varieties significantly. We ended up with a decent sized crop, even larger than normal in later growing sites that escaped most frost damage.
The growing season timeline extended significantly. Flowering was in late June and for the first time in several years, we didn't begin the grape harvest until early October. That's old school Willamette Valley stuff, but we had incredibly warm and dry weather for the first half of the month, which isn't normal. Would the grapes over-ripen? Happily no! The later start to the growing season, a good sized crop on the vines, and the fact that even warm October days are way-y shorter than warm summer days all meant that the late warmth pushed us to ripeness. We finished harvesting around October 18 in mild sunny weather and the next day rain set in and the warmth never came back. What luck! All told, 2022 is a fantastic year with great freshness in the wines and just the right ripeness.
Vincent Wine Company and its owner/winemaker, Vincent Fritzsche are, in so many ways, a natural fit in the VDLT portfolio:
Perhaps the only departure from our usual suspects is that there is a group of wine cognoscenti who have discovered Vincent...in a big way. There's not a ton of press about him but in specific circles, he has achieved superstar status. As a result, his wines are distributed more extensively than many other VDLT partners.
What started as a hobby/sidebar in 2009, blossomed into a real Willamette Valley business 6 years later. He moved into a new cellar in Amity recently and had space to welcome in his friend Saul Mutchnick of Championship Bottle (one-stop shopping for VDLT visits).
While his wines are natural-ish, he is not looking to make natural wines. He uses the minimum effective sulfur, so the wines are stable. If you want to learn how to identify grapes in blind tasting, practice with Vincent's wine. Their transparency and purity are palpable.
Two of Vincent's wines are bottled with a different brand name - Fritzsche. They are both Cabernet Sauvignon, which he purchases from an elite Napa Valley vineyard and bottles in Oregon.
We are delighted and excited to climb onto Vincent's bandwagon. We also are entirely confident that once you taste the wines, you will understand and embrace the buzz.
