Lingua Franca AVNI Willamette Valley Chardonnay 2023

A cold and rainy spring led to a late frost that devastated the Chardonnay crop. However, the end of June brought a weeklong heat wave of 35-40°C that helped kickstart the period of bloom. July was calm and moderate with little rain. Set was complete, even, and recordbreaking in its potential yield where vines had been unaffected by the frost. This came very late and forecasted a Chardonnay harvest that could come no earlier than the last week of September.

The fruit for 2023 Avni Chardonnay comes from a wide variety of sites in the Willamette Valley, split nearly evenly between the
shallow volcanic soils like our Bunker Hill vineyard and uplifted marine sediments as those found on Mt Pisgah and in the Van
Duzer corridor.

The growing season in 2023 started off with apattern that had prevailed for the previous two years with a cold wet spring, though never with any frost. The cool spring weather led into a beautifully warm second week of May with temperatures in the mid 80s that promoted shoot growth to set up for a good
flowering in June. Though we had the occasional hot day we didn’t experience the extreme heat spikes we’d seen in previous
summers. Picking began at the end of September in ideal conditions. These promise to be among our most successful
wines ever.

Whole cluster pressed with 2.5% crushed prior to pressing, settled in tank for 24 hours on average, barrel fermented with wild yeast and then aged in a combination of 26% new, 600-litre puncheons, 74% neutral large wooden casks and old French oak puncheons and barriques for 11 months sur lie. Primary and malolactic fermentation were spontaneous and completed in each barrel. The wines were then put back in closed tanks with their lees for six months prior to bottling.