X Novo, “X Omni Vineyard”, Chardonnay, Eola Amity Hills

If you love great White Burgundy, this is a bottle you need to know about. There is something very special happening in Oregon Chardonnay right now. Some of the most compelling Chardonnay on earth is being made here at the moment, and certain vineyards are beginning to emerge as the region’s equivalent of grand crus — sites where passionate, almost fanatical winemakers compete for fruit because the wines show staggering depth, tension, and complexity. Craig Williams’ vineyards, X Novo and X Omni, sit firmly in that conversation. The list of producers working with fruit from these sites tells you everything you need to know: Walter Scott crafts one of Oregon’s most coveted Chardonnays from X Novo, while Seth Morgen Long produces extraordinary examples from X Omni.

Today you get the chance to taste Craig Williams’ own wine from the site — the 2019 X Novo “X Omni Vineyard” Chardonnay from the winery’s library. And I’ll say it plainly: this is likely the best young domestic Chardonnay I have ever tasted. The wine is just getting started yet already shows the layers, tension, and deep mineral complexity you only find in the world’s greatest Chardonnay vineyards. Meursault Perrières and Chevalier-Montrachet immediately come to mind. This wine is lights out. For $100, this wine will absolutely blow your mind. In Burgundy, you simply cannot buy wine of this caliber for double the price. If you drink White Burgundy, this is not a bottle to pass up.

To understand why wines like this exist, you have to understand Oregon. The modern Oregon wine story began in the late 1960s when a handful of pioneers realized that the Willamette Valley sits at nearly the same latitude as Burgundy, creating similar daylight hours and seasonal rhythms during the growing season. For decades the region became famous for Pinot Noir, but a quiet revolution has been building around Chardonnay. A new generation of winemakers — producers like Seth Morgen Long, Lingua Franca, Walter Scott, and Craig Williams at X Novo — are proving that Oregon Chardonnay can stand among the world’s best.

Much of that movement is centered in the Eola-Amity Hills, one of the most exciting subregions in the Willamette Valley. Here the soils combine ancient marine sediment and volcanic basalt, creating wines with both mineral structure and energy. Each afternoon powerful Pacific winds funnel inland through the Van Duzer Corridor, cooling the vineyards and preserving acidity in the grapes. That constant marine influence gives the wines their signature tension and precision. The result is wines with electric acidity, crystalline fruit, and a mineral backbone that immediately recalls the great white wines of Burgundy.

Craig Williams sits right at the center of this story. His career began in 1976 at Joseph Phelps, where he would spend an extraordinary 33 vintages through 2008, helping build the estate’s Chardonnay and Pinot Noir program at Freestone Vineyards on the Sonoma Coast. That Burgundian experience eventually drew him north to Oregon, where repeated visits to the Willamette Valley in the 1990s — including the International Pinot Noir Celebration — convinced him that the region had the potential to produce world-class wines.

In 2010 Craig and his wife Robin began again. They purchased a remarkable five-acre site on the eastern side of the Eola-Amity Hills, between Cristom and Bethel Heights, and planted it to an extraordinary collection of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir clones. They named it X Novo, Latin for “anew” or “from the beginning.” Two years later they added a second vineyard nearby — X Omni — planted primarily to Chardonnay on well-drained basalt soils.

For years Craig sold the fruit from these vineyards to some of Oregon’s most respected producers. Wines from Walter Scott, Morgen Long, Big Table Farm, Abbott Claim, and Soter helped reveal just how extraordinary these sites were. But eventually Craig decided to take the final step. A small workshop winery was built on the X Novo property — a renovated barn surrounded by vines — where beginning with the 2019 vintage he started producing tiny quantities of wine under the X Novo label. What had long been one of Oregon’s most coveted vineyard sources had finally become its own estate domaine.

Today roughly 20 acres of Chardonnay and 7 acres of Pinot Noir are planted across these sites, with carefully selected clones farmed using LIVE and organic principles. In the cellar the philosophy is patience and restraint. The Chardonnay is fermented with native yeasts and aged slowly in French oak. Aged for 20 months in French oak (60% new, 40% neutral) with minimal oxygen exposure, the wine shows a perfect kiss of reduction that adds tension, depth, and complexity. After barrel aging, the wine rests several months in stainless steel before bottling, allowing the components to knit together.

The result is a wine that is subtle, layered, and incredibly intricate.

In the glass, the wine is breathtaking. Aromas rise immediately: Meyer lemon, citrus oil, Asian pear core, white peach, crushed stone, chamomile, and fresh lees, with subtle hints of ginger and matchstick. On the palate it is layered and architectural — citrus and orchard fruit wrapped around a deep mineral core. The texture is both silky and tense, finishing long with saline energy and chalky grip. This is the kind of Chardonnay that reminds you why Burgundy became famous in the first place.

Pair it with dishes that mirror its elegance: butter-poached lobster, seared scallops with brown butter, roast chicken with morels, Dungeness crab, or aged Comté.

If opening now, decant for about 30 minutes to allow the wine to fully unfurl. Serve at 50–55°F in large Burgundy stems — Zalto Burgundy glasses are ideal.

This wine is still young and just beginning its evolution. Properly stored, it will easily develop for 10–15 years.