Collection: An American Superstar: Walter Scott

Somehow, the wines of Walter Scott still manage to fly under the radar of many American wine lovers. But surely not for much longer. Husband and wife team of Ken Pahlow and Erica Landon are producing some of the best Pinot Noir wines of the Willamette Valley, and arguably the greatest of all American Chardonnays. If you think that’s hyperbolic, taste them and then contradict me!

Ken and Erica purchase grapes from a range of vineyards across the Willamette, but especially from sites on the volcanic soils of the Eola-Amity hills. Here they ensure the fruit is farmed to meet their needs, particularly in terms of yield reduction through green harvest and a harvest date usually a week earlier than their neighbours.

The Pinots are particularly fine-boned and aromatic, with silky textures, the succulent fruit offset by layers of smoky minerality and vibrant acids. The Chardonnays combine ample fruit with a tension and minerality unusual in American wines; add this to reductive winemaking, and you have some of the most incisive and glorious whites this country has to offer.