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2022 Championship Bottle Chardonnay Gravity's Pull Dion Vineyard Willamette Valley 750 ml
Retail: $37 | ||
| $32 | 14% off | per bottle |
- Curated by unrivaled experts
- Choose your delivery date
- Temperature controlled shipping options
- Get credited back if a wine fails to impress
“For Me, They Are Among the Best in Oregon.”
Championship Bottle is a little-known Willamette Valley winery with quite a cult following. Michael Alberty of The Oregonian, one of the most respected voices on PNW wine, declared: “[Winemaker] Saul Mutchnick makes small batches of stellar white wines at a corrugated tin outpost in the Eola-Amity Hills. For me, they are among the best in Oregon.”
Saul’s 2022 Championship Bottle Gravity’s Pull is a calling card bottle—the kind of wine that we’d point to when asked what makes Oregon’s Willamette Valley so special for the grape. Grown on ungrafted vines and aged in neutral oak and stainless steel, it’s joyful and electric, with a salinity that reminds me of Chablis and a delicate, savory component that’s distinctly PNW.
A huge part of this wine’s character, if you ask Saul, comes from those ungrafted vines. “Across Europe, producers who are lucky enough to have ungrafted vineyards prize them the source of their je ne sais quoi,” he said, “I think that might be the case here, as well.”
Saul is the definition of a wine-industry lifer—he started on the floor at a wine shop in college, and was working harvest by his 23rd birthday—which made him a natural fit here. But at work, Saul plays his winemaking pretty close to the vest, so it took a while for word of his label to get around. Eventually, he brought a few bottles to a work event. And every last person on the wine team loved them. But that didn’t mean we could buy any.
You’d think signing his paycheck would give us an “in” on acquiring some, but Saul rarely has any wine to sell: He makes a very small amount and it usually sells out to a rabid mailing list that’s grown quickly from Saul’s first vintage in ‘18. So every time we asked, Saul simply didn’t have enough for an offer.
Finally, this spring, we finally got around to brass tacks: There’d be some wine available, but we’d have to wait. “The Chardonnay ages well, and it’s just starting to open up,” Saul told me. “I’ll put WA’s name on a few cases, but how about in the fall?”
It was a long wait, but well worth it. Enjoy.