2023 atLarge Chardonnay Forty-Fifth Parallel Willamette Valley 750 ml

Domaine Loubejac's vineyard is one of the Willamette Valley's premier sites for growing Chardonnay. Located almost exactly on the 45th parallel—the same latitude that runs just south of Burgundy—it sits in a blustery section of the Valley that's buffeted by Pacific winds, a perfect spot to ripen Chardonnay to succulent perfection while retaining juicy acidity.

It's no secret: winemakers across the region queue up for access to these grapes, and Loubejac's client list has included some of Oregon's finest Chardonnay producers—names like Walter Scott, Lingua Franca, and Morgen Long. The winemaker at atLarge with access to that star fruit is Keith Emerson, director of winemaking at Napa's Vineyard 29 and the hand behind the 100-point 2013 Vineyard 29 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. One of the rare talents equally at home with Bordeaux and Burgundian varieties, he brings Napa precision to this cool-climate Oregon Chardonnay.

It's the same concentration and tension that made a previous vintage the top-rated Oregon Chardonnay in Wine Access history. Our colleague Amanda McCrossin called it “everything you want from Chardonnay.”

2023 ranks among the finest Chardonnay vintages the Willamette Valley has yet produced. A cool start recalling 2022 gave way to a warm, dry finish reminiscent of 2021—a sweet spot of a season that let the fruit develop full flavor while holding onto bracing acidity. Across the Valley, the year's Chardonnays came in electric yet textural.

Emerson gently pressed his prized Chardonnay as whole clusters, promoting purity of fruit and crystalline flavors, before fermenting and aging in French oak barrels for texture. Only 20% were new—lending structure while keeping oak flavors discreet—and the wine spent nearly a full year in barrel to achieve its stunning combination of opulence and electricity.

The result is everything the 45th parallel promises: the tension and mineral cut of great white Burgundy married to the sunlit generosity of Oregon fruit—and the kind of concentration and precision that have made atLarge's Forty-Fifth Parallel one of Wine Access's most beloved Chardonnay discoveries.