Had this a few times recently. Very reminiscent of white burgundy. Reminds me of Jean Noel Gagnar Chassagne Montrachet - delicious stuff!
Forgot about that thread. For my tastes, I still don’t think there are many producers whose Chardonnays I’d prefer to age more than 8-10 years. While I like most of the producers included in this thread, I have yet to see much upside after 4-7 years.
The best aged OR Chardonnay (10+ years) I’ve tried was a 1994 Thomas in (IIRC) 2016. Perhaps was a function of low expectations, but it was quite good.
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Crowley, Evesham Wood are great calls and over sight on my part. I haven’t had many producer’s including MorganLong. I have had aged stunners from Evsham Wood, Cameron and Evening Land, but for my tastes 0-7 yrs works for me. I have a few w more age on it to try out. I’m turned off by the tropical profile aged (OR) chard can get.
A producer I’d like to try is Niew. Expensive but I’ve heard great things. Small producer w very limited wine. They just released their 2021. If anyone takes a flyer or already knows , please share your thoughts.
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For my palate, 4-7 years for a white wine counts as aging. 
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Ah, you’re right. I guess there was a Freedom Hill as well. More info here in their BD 13 post: Walter Scott Chardonnay Vertical
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Some guy really liked Trathan Hall a few years back.
And there’s a Brickhouse and Violin mention.
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I have three bottles of Violin Chardonnay, and now I need to put the oldest (not old, just oldest I have) on queue - '18 Coast Range Estate
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I should do the same thing. A few years ago, it was really tight and needed some time, so I buried it.
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what vintage?
- I think that was the last vintage he got Coastal Range. The owners actually use it to make sparkling. I have 2019 Violin Sojeau and Black Walnut Chard. But when I tasted them all together at the winery, the 2018 seemed the most primary at the time.
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Also perhaps a function of being very old, and/or from a great vintage?
Another tremendous older vintage Chardonnay that I tried was a 1996 bottling from Rex Hill, made by Lynn Penner-Ash. From the old school 108 clone that everyone thought was incapable of making good Chardonnay.
It’s a warmer climate now, and the Dijon clones make earlier drinking wines. So I kind of feel that, similarly to Burgundy, most OR Chardonnay doesn’t need 10+ years. I’ll be interested to see the 14 Richard’s Cuvee at 10+ years, as well as the 16-19 versions, but even these aren’t wines that demand a decade or longer.
Also, Cristom brought Daniel Estrin up from Littorai to bring the Chardonnay program into peak form. I have yet to try the wines myself but I’m starting to hear very good things. The Littorai Chardonnays are among my favorite CA Chardonnays, do I am definitely going to have to sample some of the new vintages.
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Yes, I can attest that the Cristom Chardonnay was noteworthy during my September 2022 visit. I didn’t take any pictures, but I think that it was the 2019. I might have purchased a bottle. I’ll double check.
So you’re saying you’re up for trying something Niew?
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Though with all the bubbles and Chenin you are drinking now, your palate preference for acidity may have moved so far up the scale you may have ‘missed’ the window 
Kidding of course, Will’s Chardonnays are awesome.
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I’m interested to try Tai-Ran’s wines as well.
While we don’t follow Fukuoka as far down the rabbit hole as Tai-Ran is, leaving the vineyard be is definitely something we have pushed in our farming at Whistling Ridge. Some of the results have been remarkable and have brought an ability to produce what are some of my very favorite, and most unique, Goodfellow wines.
But in the E&R write up there is a somewhat bold statement that has little proof behind it. Not spraying sulfur in the vineyard is a luxury of isolation. But there’s little proof that spraying sulfur shortens the lifespan of grapes. Old vines all around the world show a lack of proof of this.
Whereas not addressing powdery mildew is highly unlikely to add to longevity. Powdery mildew doesn’t cause a plant to die, but it absolutely inhibits it ability to function at optimal health, in addition to producing sub-par fruit or wrecking the ability to harvest fruit at all.
In the write up, they comment that some of Tai-Ran’s vines are dying already. I’m a believer in not obliterating the Darwinian process in vine selection, and replanting with massale grafts of healthy or vigorous plants is an intelligent action. But he should also consider that competition from the vineyard ground cover in Oregon is a heavy load for young vines to bear. Adding in mildew will simply add challenges to the health and ability of his vines to compete, and probably more will die. The opposite of longevity, though this is just my opinion.
And when, or if, powdery mildew gets a foothold, the spore counts will increase and the severity of the issue will rise significantly. To some extent, the Fukuoka idea is similar to ideas about vaccines. And for a man stranded on a desert island, vaccines may not be the best choice but historically this isn’t true in village or city life.
Most of all, this experiment is still a work in progress and too often I am seeing “papers” written as if it has succeeded, rather than being a hoped for desire. I’ve seen the loss of crops that come with powdery mildew outbreaks, and it can be absolutely devastating.
I really enjoy the intelligence of many of the people that Tai-Ran and E&R listen to and cite. But the vineyard managers should post how many acres and times they have lost blocks, acres, or vineyards to mildew(and it has happened), and it should be noted that while Lingua Franca’s wines are quite good, they also sold out to Constellation, opening the door to the Sith invading Oregon. Constellation also being reknowned for their focus on ecological farming choices… 
While I am sure Constellation would have showed up somewhere, it’s a bit frustrating that if turned out to be through the two most heralded outsiders in our industry, Larry Stone and Dominique Lafon. I would have guessed them smart enough to avoid that, especially after working with Tarlov.
Rant over…back to great Oregon Chardonnays.
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Is there a difference between these wines and Burgundy chards? I’m not so sure. Both cases, they drink nicely in that time frame. But a good 1er Cru or, for example, a Walter Scott X-Novo, are built to go a longer distance, no?
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I don’t want to speak for the Walter Scott folks (Ken, Erica, Andy), but I think that they have suggested a drinking window of 7-10 years for the Chardonnays. 2013 was the first year of the X-Novo Chardonnay, so not much data on that particular wine (or any of the Walter Scott Chardonnays). I opened a 2013 Walter Scott X-Novo Chardonnay at the final Cork Vault bottle share in November 2022. It might have been an off bottle, but I would probably recommend drinking now. Besides a few folks (DDO, Eyrie, Cameron, etc.), not enough data points to truly know about some of the Oregon Chardonnays. I don’t mean any of this as slight to any of my favorite Oregon winemakers. I’m still holding a few bottles of the 2013 Walter Scott X-Novo and all of the other X-Novo’s, 2012 Goodfellow Richard’s Cuvee and most of the other recent vintages, 2012 Arterberry Maresh Maresh Chardonnay and some of the other vintages, etc. I can say that the 1995 and 2011 Eyrie Chardonnays, the 2011 DDO Arthur Chardonnay were all delicious and consumed rather recently. Time will tell…
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That’s a good question. I don’t know if there’s enough data to inform Oregon’s aging curve in relation to a 1er Cru from Burgundy. It would make for one heck of an off-line.
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I love Goodfellow. I’m excited to try the Vincent wines I got from BD! Heard Morgen Long was good, but a bit more expensive that I have seen.