93 Points (Best Buy) - 2018 Willamette Valley Chardonnay

This is the first release for Dave Paige, former longtime winemaker at Adelsheim, under his own label. Nearly all of the fruit for this wine comes from RPG, a mature vineyard he and his partners have recently purchased, set on volcanic soils in the Eola–Amity Hills. He puts half of the blend through malolactic conversion, and is largely laissez-faire from there. The result feels limpid, bright and tense from the moment it’s first poured, with flavors of clarified apple nectar and a whiff of smoke. It has the cool-water clarity for salt-roasted prawns. Reviewed by Patrick J. Comiskey.