Walter Scott, Freedom Hill Chardonnay, Willamette Valley

Decanted for half an hour. Lots of reduction, citrus, stone fruit and mineral character. Great precision and energy. Fairly accessible now but years from really hitting its stride. Freedom Hill chardonnays always lean overly reductive for my taste across a number of different winemakers, makes me think it must be something to do with the farming there.

Dinner at Chaoshan : My extra, opened the night before into a Voss since these wines can be reductive and marked by acidity. Matchstick reduction on opening that dissipated but the elevated acidity remained the next day. Very energetic citrus-driven fruit that was enjoyable but reinforced by view that early-picked Chardonnays bring tension at the expense of complexity. From what I gathered at the table, a love it or hate it wine.

Lots of matchstick reduction. Sweet lemon, yellow fruit, long rocky saline finish. I prefer the 23 as the fruit comes across as fresher but this is not bad at all. I will note that this was much improved after ~12 hours open.

The reduction was super strong on this bottle and robbed the fruit of any chance of expansion. Hardboiled egg, lime, and lemon pith. Overdone and blown out to the point of no return for me. Jacked my palate all up to where I had to gargle with Champagne (not recommended) to completely recalibrate and get back on track in the blind comparative still white tasting. Rough go with this bottle, even with a revisit after a ton of air and …

Hate to be the party pooper here but I didn't like this, not my style at all. Way too over the top. In a line up of a half dozen whites tasted blind, this came in dead last. C

For Spits and Giggles (House of the Chiefs!) : Blind. Some reduction on the nose. Very flinty, matchsticky. A bit weird for me. Just not competing at all with anything on the table, other than maybe the 00 Seven Springs in the lineup. NR, but if you yanked my arm to score, maybe 87. A bit disappointing

Blind city (Street corner) : The nose gives off dark honey and dark yellow fruits, not bruised though this time around. Deep hay notes too, like somehow damp and not dried. Flavors of waxy dark yellow fruits with a spicy honey wax. Great juiciness on the end and thank goodness for that, kinda saves this deep and weighty uppercut of darkness. Kinda reminds me of the 00 but with some acidity, it does help.

Pear, apple and mineral notes on the nose. As other reviewers have noted, this wine does initially show a good amount of reduction on the nose (matchstick notes), but after about 60-90 minutes, I found that blew off for the most part. While it did remain a background note it was neither prominent nor overpowering. Medium bodied (13% ABV) with mainly white orchard fruit notes especially apple and pear with a bit of peach. Good depth through the middle as …

Medium-pale yellow-gold with green tint. Lemon, citrus, tangerine peel, hazelnut, white flowers, daffodil. medium toasted barrel and minerality. Medium-full bodied, high acidity, medium-high structure, medium alcohol and long finish. Fresh, complex and elegant. Good tension on mid-palate.

This has the most site signature of the 2022 SVDs, I felt. One of the most reductive wines of the lineup and had intense concentration with a distinct salty mineral note that I loved. This felt very Meursault-like in style. 95pts.

Walter Scott 2022 Vintage Zoom Tasting : The Freedom Hill Chardonnay had the most reduction of all of the wines we tasted. I like the reductive qualities, and on this wine it was probably at the maximum level where I would still enjoy the wine as I did. Nose of brioche and wet rocks. High acid, though very integrated. Flavors of citrus and I thought Ken’s note of “burnt grapefruit” was spot on. The reduction makes this wine very interesting, …

2022 Walter Scott test drive (zoom) : The nose is jubilant and aromatic with a lot of immediacy to the tones of stone fruits, pears, peaches, crushed rocks, lemon oil, limes, apple blossoms, jasmine, and some reductive notes. The reduction thankfully doesn't dominate and is more a part of the whole than the featured solo-ist. The Medium bodied feel is well balanced and silky with crisp, medium+ acidity that still has a touch of sting. This is clearly a young …