VINTAGE HIGHLIGHTS
What started as a dry winter turned into a deluge of rain in the springtime. We had the wettest and coldest April/May/June in recorded (130 years) history. Freezing temperatures on the morning of April 14th and 15th knocked back the fragile new growth and we thought our crop yields would be down by 50-60%. In over 51 years of growing grapes here in the Dundee Hills we have never seen a freezing event during the growing season, so we had no idea what was going to happen. The primary buds froze and died, but the secondary buds came on, produced fewer but larger clusters, and the vines made a miraculous comeback. We had the 2nd warmest and driest summer on record, and then we got to October. Everything depended on good ripening conditions in the month of October since bloom was much later. Fortunately we got the warmest October in Oregon history, we were able to let the grapes hang, and the rains stayed put until all our Estate fruit was in on Thursday, October 27th. The fruit got nice and ripe, and we are thrilled with the wine produced from this vintage!

WINE PROFILE
The 2022 Kalita Vineyard Crimson Clover has vanilla and floral notes on the nose. The palate has lively notes of Bing cherry and bright currants with coffee on the finish.

THE STORY
Kalita Vineyard is located in the heart of the Yamhill-Carlton AVA in the Willamette Valley. To create the Crimson Clover blend, the winemaking team selected barrels from different blocks on the vineyard site which they felt best punctuated Kalita's style of wine. The barrels were selected in August of 2022, blended together, then returned to barrel to age another five months before bottling.