2021 Bethel Heights Vineyard ‘Casteel’ Reserve Chardonnay, Willamette Valley, USA (750ml)

WINEMAKER’S NOTES:

The goal for the Casteel Chardonnay is always to make the best expression of the vintage, regardless of where in the vineyard the grapes come from. After a year exploring the possibilities from Justice in 2019, the winery turned their eyes back to Bethel Heights for the 2021. Hailing from both the oldest vines planted in 1977 and the adjacent block planted in 1994, this wine encapsulates the best of what they saw in 2021: the opulence of a warm year with the tension and vibrancy of a cool year. 2021 really was both sides of the seasonal coin.

TASTING NOTES:

The 2021 Chardonnay Casteel is complex and alluring, offering dynamic aromas and flavors as it unfurls with oxygen over several days. The nose offers lemon peel and panna cotta, spicy, honeyed undertones and streaks of flint. The medium-bodied palate is satiny and expansive with impressively concentrated, slightly exotic fruit driven by focused acidity, and just enough smoky reduction adds even more complexity to its generous fruit. Year after year, the Casteel is one of the best Chardonnays coming out of Oregon, and this 2021 is especially gorgeous!

– Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, 97 pts.

The bright yellow straw-hued 2021 Chardonnay Casteel is elegant and floral, with a more refined perfume of lemongrass, delicate baking spice, green apple, and fennel. Silky and refined, a note of citrus oils coats the palate with a spine of fresh acidity underneath, and it has a long finish.

– Jeb Dunnuck, 96 pts.