2023 Ponzi Vineyards Chardonnay Laurelwood District Willamette Valley 750 ml

When it comes to Oregon Chardonnay, one name has been part of the conversation since the very beginning: Ponzi.

Luisa Ponzi’s 2023 Laurelwood District Chardonnay shows exactly why many wine lovers, critics, somms, and winemakers are even more pumped about Willamette Valley Chardonnay than they are about the region’s celebrated Pinot Noirs.

Wine Enthusiast gave it an extraordinary 95-point score and Editors’ Choice honors, but read the text of the review and it’s even better: “This bottling will take your breath away” they begin, before raving over the way the “wine lights up the palate.” Their conclusion? “Only pour this wine for people you really, really like.”

You could make the case that Chardonnay master Dominique Lafon (of Domaine des Comtes Lafon) played a major part in the quality explosion in Oregon Chardonnay. His expertise has reverberated throughout the Willamette Valley, from Evening Land to Walter Scott to Lingua Franca. But the Willamette Valley gave Lafon a gift as well, back in 1992, sending him a talented intern named Luisa Ponzi.

Ponzi’s Burgundian training has guided her family winery for decades now, and it dovetails perfectly with their estate fruit. The 2023 blend draws from four LIVE Certified Sustainable Ponzi vineyards—Issimo, Avellana, Aurora, and Paloma—all farming the same rare Laurelwood loess-over-basalt soils in the Chehalem Mountains.

Ponzi Vineyards is so renowned and accomplished that in 2021 Bollinger chose them as their first winery to acquire outside France. That speaks volumes.

The 2023 vintage unfolded as a gift for growers: a cool spring gave way to a beautiful Oregon summer of warm, dry days and cool nights, building flavor and acidity in equal measure. An early autumn rain gave the vines a well-deserved rest mid-harvest, and all the fruit was in the door by end of October. Decanter called it a “sweet spot”—its cool beginnings akin to 2022, its warm, dry finish similar to 2021—and the results in the glass back that up entirely.