The Wine
The 'Evenstad Reserve' Chardonnay represents the art of blending select barrels from our estate vineyard sites in the Dundee Hills. Our belief is that the combination of Dijon clone vines, Jory soil and the high elevation of our Dundee Hills estates gives us fruit of unparalleled quality for this reserve wine.
The Vintage
The 2018 vintage of this acclaimed wine perfectly showcases the best of each vineyard that goes into the compelling blend. An enticing tropical medley of kiwi and yellow peach act as the melody, with high notes of white flower and fresh linen. The oak treatment is flawlessly integrated, with a lingering minerality and salinity completing the symphony. This wine will certainly deserve a place in the cellar of the discerning collector of fine Chardonnays.
Winemaking
The art of blending is the hallmark of Domaine Serene’s winemaking philosophy. The signature silky style and smooth texture of our wines is no accident, and is achieved in the winery through an artful, yet scientific approach that takes winemaking precision to an uncommon level. A meticulous approach to vineyard management utilizes dry-farming and sustainable practices along with carefully managed yields to coax the optimal flavor and balance from the vines. Each block is handled separately for complete terroir transparency. From rigorous hand sorting, through as many as 250 micro-cru fermentations each vintage, to a diverse extended barrel-aging program, our estate vineyard sites are kept separate throughout the winemaking process until they are artfully assembled in the final cuvée before bottling. Each individual barrel is carefully assessed throughout the year, with multiple trial blends developed, to ultimately determine ideal final blends that deliver against the stylistic goals of the wines we create. Once bottled, the rare luxury of space in our winery allows for extended bottle aging of a minimum of 1-2 years for Pinot Noir. This ensures flavors are well integrated and ready to be enjoyed upon release. Our five-level winery is designed to use gravity flow for moving wine from one stage of the winemaking process to the next, a time-tested approach for transferring wine gently to help preserve its pure terroir expression.
The Estate
Grace and Ken Evenstad first arrived and settled in the Dundee Hills in the Willamette Valley in 1989. At that time, the couple had spent over 20 years together in Minnesota building a successful business, a loving family, and a deep appreciation for the wines of Burgundy.  The Evenstads had faith in Oregon early on, before there was a national market for domestic Pinot Noir. When the time came to pursue their longtime dream of growing and producing world-class Pinot Noir, they invested in a 42-acre hilltop estate that had just been logged in the beautiful Dundee Hills of Oregon. With the support of their family - and to the surprise of many of their friends in Minnesota – the Evenstads established Domaine Serene, effectively creating Oregon’s luxury wine industry. They named the winery after their daughter, Serene, and their first vineyard on the estate was named after their son, Mark Bradford Evenstad.
Today, Domaine Serene produces wines from six individual vineyard estates, planted exclusively to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Each estate offers a diversity of soils, clones, rootstocks, microclimates, slopes and elevations that add distinguishing complexity and elegance to the wines.