Winemaker's Notes

This wine required minimal handling and allowed wild yeasts to finish fermentation without difficulty after 1 week of cold soaking.

The wood program was 1/3 new, 1/3 once fills and 1/3 twice fills using a blend of five French cooperages with all medium plus toast.

The wine was stirred on the lees every 2 weeks. Blending trials in August led to a final wine using both the free run and some of the press wine (unusual) and was bottled in mid September.

The proportion of clones is 115 (25%), 777 (25%), 114 (25%), 667 (12.5%), Pommard (12.5%). The estate blend is from 80% destemmed fruit and 20% whole cluster fermented fruit.

1000 cases produced.

The 2008 vintage is being hailed by many as Oregon’s best vintage to date. It was exceptional for us in multiple ways.

All five of our estate vineyard Pinot noir clones are mature and producing amazing fruit: 114, 115, 667, 777, and Pommard. The crop was huge and we dropped fruit like mad and yet ended up with almost 3 tons per acre.

The summer was exceptional to say the least. With the heavy yield the tannins were soft, fine grained and mature; shedding the youthful qualities the fruit had shown before.

Harvest occurred the in mid October, taking advantage of the long summer. The brix ranged from 25.3-26.2 with TA’s hovering around 0.55.