Description
Bow & Arrow, Willamette Valley Chenin Blanc
Longtime SommSelect readers know that Oregon’s Willamette Valley is the first place we look for American wines combining New World generosity with Old World elegance. The focus here has long been on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but tasting today’s wine had us questioning that conventional wisdom. Bow & Arrow’s Chenin Blanc isn’t just one of the very best examples of the variety we’ve ever had outside the Loire Valley; it’s also a fascinating and totally unexpected view into a region most wine drinkers think they’ve got all figured out. All of Chenin’s signature aromatics—the creamy orchard fruit, the honeyed nuttiness, that tell-tale wooly savor—are amplified and intensified thanks to Oregon’s warmer conditions, yet they’re married to a rigor and cut we often find lacking in domestic examples of the variety. And just like our favorite Loire bottlings, it way over-delivers on its modest cost of entry, offering up loads of complexity and even medium-term ageability at a weeknight-friendly price. It is, in short, one of the most thrilling domestic white wines we’re likely to offer all year. Whether your allegiances lie in the Loire or you’re a Willamette wine diehard, this is a bottle not to be missed!
Scott Frank’s journey was totally unlike that of most other Willamette Valley winemakers. The Willamette is a place widely regarded as one of the top four or five in the world for Burgundian varieties, so it’s naturally attracted a cadre of wildly ambitious outsiders seeking to make exclusive and expensive trophy bottles. But Scott more or less fell into the profession. After a few years spent adrift in New York City, he moved out to Portland and got a job as a grocery store wine buyer, for which, he’ll freely admit, he was wholly unqualified. He got to know Willamette legend John Paul at Cameron Winery, and after spending a few harvests there, became the assistant winemaker. A few years later, he struck out on his own, driven to show a different side of his adopted home.
In some ways, Scott’s wines could be seen as a direct reflection of his humble origins. Despite the influx of money and talent the region has seen over the past few decades, vast swaths of it are still working-class agricultural communities. This is the Willamette Scott wants to highlight. It follows, then, that he looks to humble, workaday Loire Valley wines for inspiration. He of course works with some Pinot and Chardonnay—these are, after all, found in the Loire, too—but his calling cards are Gamay, Chenin, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc. Like so many of our favorite Loire producers, he works in a distinctly hands-off way, fermenting everything spontaneously, aging in neutral vessels, and only adding minimal doses of sulfur. And like those producers’ wines, Scotts are approachable, transparent looks into variety and vineyard, shockingly easy to drink yet endlessly complex.
His 2020 Chenin Blanc is sourced from Union School Vineyard, planted in a warm spot for the region on loamy sedimentary soils. It was whole cluster pressed to 500L neutral casks, where it fermented and aged for 12 months. Serve it just below cellar temp, and it bursts from the glass with waves of creamed pear, red apple skin, dried lemon peel, just-ripe white peach, almond skin, spiced honey, pulverized chalk, and wet wool. The palate is lush and mouth coating, reinforcing the apple and pear fruit, before crackling acidity comes through to wash it away and leave a minutes-long, salty finish. Amply fruit-driven yet totally dry, clean, and mineral (yet not austere), it may be the best Chenin we’ve ever tasted outside of the Loire Valley. And at just $30, we’ll be popping bottles of it every chance we get for the rest of the summer. We suggest you go deep and do the same!
