Few Virginia wineries are as terroir-driven as Linden Vineyards. Probably the best proof behind this statement is how many of Linden’s wines are named after the vineyards they come from; namely Avenius, Boisseau, and Hardscrabble.

These vineyards are the only places Linden uses for fruit, and their varying soil types and elevation means each provide a different tasting profile. While not every wine Linden produces is vineyard-specific (they also make a multi-vineyard Chardonnay called “Village” and red-blend named “Claret”), owner/winegrower Jim Law prefers to let the vineyards speak for themselves.

• Avenius Vineyard (5 acres, 1,300-1,400 feet elevation). Linden’s highest and coolest site. Named for and farmed by Shari Avenius. Located less than a mile from the winery, but on a very different soil profile.
• Boisseau Vineyard (4 acres, 600 feet). This is Linden’s lowest and warmest site. Named for and farmed by Richard Boisseau. As the smallest vineyard, it’s not uncommon for a vintage to lack a vineyard-specific Boisseau wine as the fruit was blended into Claret or Village.
• Hardscrabble Vineyard (~20 acres, 1,100-1,400 feet elevation). This is Linden’s largest, oldest, and most diverse vineyard, located at the winery. The best blocks go into Hardscrabble (red or white), while the younger ones go into Claret & Village. Some vines date back to 1985.

Picking a favorite Linden vineyard is something of a parlor game for Virginia wine nerds. Hardscrabble arguably produces Linden’s most famous wines, but don’t discount the other two. “Acid-heads” love Avenius’ higher-elevation fruit, while Boisseau produces some of Linden’s easiest-drinking, more fruit-forward wines.

Nevertheless, I wanted to try all three side-by-side, and it wasn’t difficult to find helpers for this task. Most had tried Linden wine before, although only a few of them had been exposed to this kind of multi-vineyard, multi-vintage experience.

My tasting was both a vertical in that the reds came from two different years (2017 and 2019), and a horizontal in we had all three vineyards represented. 2017 and 2019 were also two of the better growing years in recent Virginia history.

Our Chardonnay flight (only 2019 vintage)

• 2019 Avenius
• 2019 Boisseau
• 2019 Hardscrabble

Our Bordeaux blend flights (2017 and 2019 vintages)

• 2017 Avenius (54% Merlot, 46% Cabernet Sauvignon)
• 2017 Boisseau (40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Petit Verdot, 20% Merlot and 6% Cabernet Franc)
• 2017 Hardscrabble (57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Merlot)
• 2019 Avenius (50% Cab Sauv, 42% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot)
• 2019 Boisseau (61% Cab Franc, 19% Petit Verdot, 17% Merlot, 3% Cab Sauv)
• 2019 Hardscrabble (65% Cab Sauv, 19% Cab Franc, 16% Merlot)

At the end of every round, I did a poll to determine our favorite from the flight. But in reality, “Best” was entirely subjective. Even the wine that was the ‘least’ favorite was something we’d have happily enjoyed.

All reds were decanted for 1.5-2 hours prior to the event. Jim has exceptionally detailed notes describing the vintage years and individual wines, so follow the embedded links more information on the Linden website.

2019 Chardonnay Round

Linden vineyards exist in no small part because Jim Law was inspired by Chablis. While most winemakers tend to advertise red blends as their ‘flagship’ wines, Chardonnay is of such importance that I’d argue Linden’s ‘flagship’ is its Hardscrabble Chardonnay.

These three Chardonnays had distinct personalities, but we usually saw more similarities than differences. Avenius and Hardscrabble are definitely ‘cousins’, while Boisseau was more of an outlier. Yet there was still a common thread of fruit and minerality to all three.

• Linden 2019 Avenius Chardonnay. You could tell this was ‘mountain’ fruit because its acidity was more pronounced, plus it showcased minerality and structure. Very *bright*. Several of us detected notes of citrus, specifically lemon. Kathy mentioned chalk. Daniel mentioned ‘apple tart’.

• Linden 2019 Boisseau Chardonnay. Lots of fruit notes. Tropical nose, notes of banana. Daniel mentioned maybe an herbal note. I heard someone mention tarragon and kiwi. Another guest mentioned a bitter note.

• Linden 2019 Hardcrabble Chardonnay: This wine just felt ‘big’ on the palate. Apple and butterscotch notes. Also notes of orange peel, citrus, specifically a sweeter orange. The acidity is there, but you sometimes had to wait a moment for it to hit you. One person mentioned it had almost a certain waxiness to it.

When I did my poll, 7 out of 8 of us preferred Avenius. We almost universally felt the 2019 Avenius was very clean and ready to drink.

Hardscrabble was the runner up. It also had acidity, just not to the degree of Avenius. That said, we felt HS would only get better and better. Boisseau was definitely well enjoyed, but it was just a different animal than the other two.

Favorites:

• Alex: 2/1/3. The outlier of my group!
• Daniel: 1/3/2. By technical standards, he felt #3/Hardscrabble was the ‘best’ wine of the lineup, but felt Avenius was drinking great now. While both still had years to go, the Hardscrabble hadn’t yet peaked.
• Kathy: 1/3/2.
• Lieven: 1/3/2. Felt the Avenius was ‘ready to drink’ right now.
• Matt: 1/3/2
• Mark: 1/2/3
• Todd: 1/3/2
• Vanessa: 1/3/2. Felt the Avenius had the most lift and was clean, even waxy.

2017 Red blend round

2017 was one of Linden’s best vintages in years, for both reds and whites. These wines are likely to last for many, many years to come.

I was surprised that a vintage 8 years old tasted so fresh. As Virginia’s weather becomes increasingly erratic we are seeing more instances of ‘hot years’ that causes local fruit to become disjointed, or ‘rainy years’ which results in underripe fruit. But 2017 was a goldilocks year where the pieces fit almost perfectly.

• Linden 2017 Avenius red: 54% Merlot, 46% Cabernet Sauvignon. Refined tannin but a shorter finish. We detected newer oak but it’s so integrated you don’t mind at all. It also leaned heavily on the fruit, with notes of blackberry and boysenberry. Someone mentioned notes of pine, eucalyptus, and it was ‘forest-y’. This wine also evolved the most in the glass.

• Linden 2017 Boisseau red: 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Petit Verdot, 20% Merlot and 6% Cabernet Franc. Fruit notes, especially dark cherry. Some felt it was almost too fruity, and they struggled to find notes beyond it. Others noted a root beer quality to it, plus notes of pyrazines and pepper. While the general consensus was while this wine had more fruit than we preferred, it was “nice” fruit; not jammy at all. It also had a good structure to it.

• Linden 2017 Hardscrabble red: 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Merlot. Balanced; medium/medium plus acidity. Ripe fruit, especially plumb. But there were also notes of minerality, including graphite. Notes of cassis were mentioned, while another guest said it was “meaty” and had a cigar box quality to it. This was also the most food-centric wine of the trio.

By a unanimous vote, the 2017 Hardscrabble red was our favorite. Avenius came in 2^nd and Boisseau 3^rd, also with unanimous votes by all eight attendees.

I’m absolutely not surprised that the 2017 Hardscrabble red was the favorite wine here. I’ve blind tasted it numerous times, and it’s nearly always my favorite in a contest of other championship-level wines.

Note to self; I should decant it more the next time I pop a bottle, since I felt the 2017 HS initially presented more earthy notes than I personally prefer, but the complexity popped out once swirled in the glass.

Favorites:

• Alex: 3/1/2. Thought of steak when drinking the Hardscrabble, but felt the Avenius could be enjoyed on its own
• Daniel: 3/1/2. The Hardscrabble was “balanced and complex”. The Avenius shared many of its qualities, just less so.
• Kathy: 3/1/2
• Lieven: 3/1/2. Felt the Hardscrabble was “elegant and elevated”
• Matt: 3/1/2
• Mark: 3/1/2
• Todd: 3/1/2
• Vanessa: 3/1/2. Said “The Avenius has structure, but the Hardscrabble has everything”

2019 Red blend round

While this vintage was two years younger than the 2017 round, the 2019 reds actually presented as being older and smoother than the 2017s. I attribute that to 2017 being such a great year that balance was easy to achieve, while 2019 was a hotter, riper year.

• Linden 2019 Avenius red: 50% Cab Sauv, 42% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot. The barrel notes were well integrated. Notes of black cherry and raspberry were mentioned. Tart. Higher acidity than the other wines in this flight.

• Linden 2019 Boisseau red: 61% Cab Franc, 19% Petit Verdot, 17% Merlot, 3% Cab Sauv. Our notes were all over, but my favorite descriptor was “Hedonistic”. Long list of fruit and/or earthy notes, with some tasters leaning one way or the other. Many mentioned notes of black cherry, perhaps with a compote/sweet fruit note to it. A few mentioned liquorish. Others said it was ‘grippy’ and chewy. Still others felt it had more earthy characteristics, maybe a little mushroom, even ‘spice box’.

• Linden 2019 Hardscrabble red: 65% Cab Sauv, 19% Cab Franc, 16% Merlot. Balanced. Notes of bramble fruit, baking spices, maybe a little brett. Cigar box and leather was mentioned. The tannin was chewy bur refined. Not a lot of fruit notes, though.

By another 8-person unanimous vote, the 2019 Boisseau red was decreed the favorite of our 3^rd round. When he first tried it, I believe Daniel said something to the effect of, “That’s what I’m talking about!”. Avenius was almost universally the runner-up, and Hardscrabble was 3rd.

My best guess was the warmer year accentuated the fruit qualities of the Boisseau. It was also an outlier in this was our only red that was Cabernet Franc heavy, and people seemed to gravitate towards some of the spice notes that better Cab Francs have.

Favorites:

• Alex: 2/3/1. Felt the #3/Hardscrabble needed more time
• Daniel: 2/1/3. Likewise felt the Hardscrabble needed more time
• Kathy: 2/1/3
• Lieven: 2/1/3
• Matt: 2/1/3
• Mark: 2/1/3
• Todd: 2/1/3. Felt #2 was the most open and balanced
• Vanessa: 2/1/3. Said that #2/ was “great right now”

The results

In summary, here were the favorites per round:

1. 2019 Avenius Chardonnay (7 out 8 votes)
2. 2017 Hardscrabble red (8 out of 8 votes)
3. 2019 Boisseau red (8 out of 8 votes)

I love that every round picked a different vineyard as their favorite. The qualities of each vineyard definitely shined through, influenced by the year the wine was made.

That said, I’m positive that had we tried this event either a year earlier or later, we easily could have come up with different results. Certain wines we tried this day were just ‘in their prime’, while others (especially Hardscrabble) arguably needed another year to reach their peak.

I admit I was somewhat surprised how unanimous we tended to be, given my group was rather diverse. 3 of us had been visiting Linden for years. Another 3 were DC-based wine experts who had experienced Linden, although not necessarily older vintages. The last 2 guests had until recently been living in Sonoma and were just starting their Virginia wine journey. Yet this group was extremely consistent in how we rated all 3 flights.

I did one last poll regarding favorite vineyard…and the overall favorite vineyard was Avenius. Guests seemed split whether they preferred the Avenius red or white. Again; ask us on another day, or with a different variety, we may have selected otherwise.

But today; Avenius Vineyard was our favorite.