“Fantastic length, concentration and energy!”
– The Wine Advocate, 96 points
 
Walter Scott Chardonnay 'La Combe Verte', Willamette Valley, Oregon 2021 - £34.95

 
 

"When I am asked if there were any 'great discoveries' in Oregon, I would mention Walter Scott Wines, without hesitation." Neal Martin 


The Walter Scott ‘La Combe Verte’ Chardonnay 2021 is a stunning wine by any measure - well, not any measure, I mean a tape-measure would be useless, as would a speedometer, but can we move along please, I have a lot to say and I don’t have time for any more of your interruptions. All of the wines that it pays homage to with its flinty, matchstick aromas and its insanely complex palate (Coche-Dury, Le Moine, Colin-Morey, Leflaive, Arnaud Ente), are no longer affordable to mere mortals like us, so this is exactly the sort of discovery that you demand of us and rightly so! There may come a time when the name, Walter Scott, will appear between those brackets too, but for now it is an estate that has only just set foot on the travellator and begun gliding serenely past its peers. The Wine Advocate’s reviews for the new Walter Scott releases have just been published today and all 15 wines sit within a bracket of 93 to 99 points, a notable rise on previous years, so it’s not just our view that this is a domaine going places fast.
 
The ‘La Combe Verte’ 2021 is a truly world-class Chardonnay, which you can confidently take to a dinner party in the safe knowledge that it will be the wine of the night, no matter what your friends bring along. And if it isn’t, then may we politely suggest that you don’t change your wine merchant, you change your friends! The fruit feels classically cool-climate, packed with energy, rather than mass, yet there’s so much happening on the palate, layers of barrel-fermented loveliness and minerally intrigue,  that it tastes as if its vines were rooted in Corton-Charlemagne.
 
I know that £34.95 is a bit of reach for a lot of people at the moment, but if you are going to splash out on the word of a wine merchant, I want to make sure you get what you pay for and I think this could sit in the company of any fine white Burgundy or new world Chardonnay at twice the price.  

 
Walter Scott Chardonnay 'La Combe Verte', Willamette Valley, Oregon 2021 - £39.50
buy here

 
Press reviews:

The Wine Advocate: “The 2021 Chardonnay La Combe Verte opens from matchstick to intense peach perfume and nuances of beeswax, almonds and acacia. The medium-bodied palate explodes with layer after layer of powerful fruit, delivered in a luxuriously silky texture and tempered by focused acidity. The Combe Verte offers fantastic length, concentration and energy! Drink 2024-2034.” 96 points
 
JancisRobinson.com: “A blend of Witness Tree, Freedom Hill, Kusa and Loubejac vineyards. 20% new oak. No fining on anything since 2019. Medium lemon in colour. Delicate white florals on the nose, yellow apple, just-ripe apricot, lemon, flinty reduction and a touch of vanilla from wood. The palate is saline with mouth-wateringly high acid that drives through the finish. Quite textural. Needs some time to unwind. Drink 2024-2027.” 17+ points

 

Harvesting Chardonnay for La Combe Verte 2021. I still find it amazing to think that the wine in the bottle I am drinking came from the very grapes being picked in the photograph above.

 

“Walter Scott demonstrates the potential for producing great Chardonnay in the Willamette Valley.” - The Wine Advocate
 
The Willamette Valley (pronounced with the emphasis on the am) in Oregon is very much a cool-climate region for viticulture and, as with any marginal ripening climate, the choice of vine variety and selection of growing site take on added importance, but when chosen well, the positives outweigh the negatives, because grapes give their finest expression when taken to the edge of ripening. The valley stretches along the west bank of the Willamette River over a distance of 150 miles from Portland in the north to Eugene in the south. Its vineyards lie on the foothills of the Coast Range Mounatins that form the western edge of the valley.