This first block of Pinot Noir planted by Bill and Susan Sokol Blosser is one section of their first land purchase of December 1970 – a dilapidated 18 acre prune orchard. The 5.75 acre block was planted in small sections between 1972 and 1974 and contains three Pinot Noir clones: Pommard, Wadenswil and Pinot Droit (an upright clone thought at the time to be Gamay Beaujolais). The vines are on their own roots and are spaced 6’ x 10’. The section crests at 500’ elevation, gently slopes east down to about 450’, and is comprised of Jory soil, the distinctively red clay loam of the Dundee Hills.

Unlike the extremely warm vintage of 2003, 2004 was more of a typical Oregon year. We began our Pinot Noir harvest on September 10 after a week of clear, warm, sunny days, only to be hit with rain on the 11th. During the next week we had cool, wet weather, with just enough periods of drying out for us to bring in about half of our Pinot Noir. Finally, on the 20th the rain and showers ended and, with the exception of some cold, foggy mornings, we had generally nice weather, especially in the afternoons. We brought in the balance of the grapes during the two weeks between September 21 and October 5, just before the rains began again on October 6. Sugars were not excessively high, acid levels were good, and, other than the mini-eruption of Mt. St. Helens on October 1, the harvest of 2004 was refreshingly uneventful.

The yield in 2004 was very small from this old block – less than 1.4 tons/acre. The grapes were de-stemmed into small (one-ton and three-ton) open-top fermenters, preserving as many whole berries as possible. After two days of pre-fermentation maceration they were punched-down three times per day during a seven-day fermentation. Finally, the wine was given a very long (twenty-two day) post-fermentation maceration, then went quickly to barrels for a long, slow malolactic fermentation. The barrels, 60% of which were new, were all fine-grain French oak from a number of different Burgundian cooperages.  The wine was bottled without any fining or filtration in March, 2006.

The wine from this block is always distinctively spicy and harmonious, and shows the intensity, concentration, impressive length and complexity that comes from vines that are now a remarkable thirty-two years old. The 2004 is no exception – even at this early stage in this wine’s life there are hints of berries, black cherry, cinnamon, hazelnuts, licorice, mushrooms, violets, leather and earth. There’s a lot going on here! The texture is beautifully soft and silky, with fine-grained polished tannins, and the underlying toasty oak is nicely integrated.

Because these vines have been in decline due to phylloxera for some time now, the 2004 will be the last bottling from the Old Vineyard Block. Quality was not high enough in 2005 or 2006 to bottle this block separately and, following the 2006 harvest, we pulled out the vines. It was a tough decision – they had given their all and produced beautiful wines for over thirty years. But we will be replanting the block soon and look forward to special grapes from a special part of the vineyard again in a few years.