2023 Wild Angels
After a hiatus of many years, we’re very happy to bring back an Armstrong Family Winery Chardonnay. We’ve danced with making a Chardonnay a few times since our first vintage, but we don’t grow the variety and we never quite found the right site for the style of wine we wanted to make. Fortunately, the perfect vineyard was right under our noses - one we had worked with many times before for red wine varieties. For Wild Angels, we’re looking for the right balance of crisp acidity and just enough ripeness to make an elegant expression of the variety.
The 2022 vintage was outstanding by nearly every measure, but it started quite late and, for weeks, it seemed like it was going to be a cool year. Once summer arrived, however, it was near perfect and provided ideal growing conditions. For white varieties, this cool start created a somewhat shorter growing season, but autumn weather cooperated perfectly, allowing us to maintain freshness but with ample hang time to develop the flavors we’re looking for.
In the glass, this wine is quite light in color. It has a delicate nose of perfectly-ripe pear, a bit of green apple, and a hint of lemon zest. It is delightfully crisp with apple notes layered on lemon curd but maintains an elegant texture that is somehow both fresh and round. The very subtle barrel notes contribute to a delicate but persistent finish.
Suggested serving temperature is 50-55 F.
• 100% Chardonnay
• 100% hand picked and whole-cluster pressed.
• Barrel fermented and aged in 23% new French Oak and the remainder in stainless steel – no lees stirring.
• Bottled April 24, 2022
The wine name itself is something of a throwback to one of the very first wines we ever made. Originally, Wild Angels was a blend of Chardonnay and Viognier. Back then, we chose the name to honor our two daughters, who were quite little at the time - around 4 and 6 years old. You can imagine that the name felt like an appropriate representation of the wide range of their demeanor throughout any given day. We stopped making that original blend for a variety of reasons, mostly due to fruit sourcing, but we always regretted giving up the name. Now that we've brought a Chardonnay back into our portfolio, it seemed very appropriate to resurrect the name. And, if you're curious, we think the name still represents the spirit of the two beautiful young ladies.
| Varietal | Chardonnay |
| Appellation | Washington State |
| Vineyard | Copeland Vineyard |
| Harvest Date | 09/30/2022 |
| Acid | 5.3 g/L |
| PH | 3.43 |
| Fermentation | Barrel fermented and aged in 23% new French Oak and the remainder in stainless steel – no lees stirring. |
| Alcohol | 13.20% |
| Volume | 750 ml |
| Cases Produced | 210 |
19/20 Rand Sealey's Review of Washington Wines
The “Wild Angels” are the Armstrongs’ two daughters. This Chardonnay shows a brilliant lemon-gold color attractive aromas of pear-apple, peach, and citrus with scents of pear blossoms, honeysuckle and white incense. The flavors are vivacious, with notes of peach stone, pear skin and saline minerals. The back picks up poire William and pêche liqueurs and lemon custard on the way to a crisp, juicy finish. 19/20 points.
This Chardonnay is grown at Copeland Vineyard. We’re honored to be working with this small block of Chardonnay at a family vineyard owned and managed by an exceptionally talented grower (and good friend) in the Yakima Valley, Patrick Rawn. The entire vineyard is only 26 acres, and this tiny 1.7-acre block was planted in 2000 and trained to a traditional VSP, double-cordon trellis system.
We have worked with Patrick and fruit from this vineyard since the 2013 vintage but the 2022 vintage is our first time working with the Chardonnay there. In the context of the region, Copeland is generally a cooler site and sits at 1,265 feet above sea level on very fine silt loam soils. Named for Patrick’s great-grandmother, Gladys Copeland Schmidt, who moved to the Yakima Valley with her family in 1908, the vineyard is certified sustainable by the "Sustainable WA" rules of winegrowing. At only 26 acres (10.5 hectares) planted, Copeland hosts 12 different varieties which makes it something of a microcosm for the broader Yakima Valley and Columbia Valley AVAs, where a wide diversity of vinifera thrive – including, world-class Chardonnay.
