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, in fact, until crop estimates were done in late August, we thought our crop yields would be down across the board by 50-60%. The lesson learned is don’t second guess a grapevine. 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. The coldest and wettest spring turned into the 2nd warmest and driest summer on record, and then we got to October. Everything depended on good ripening conditions (dry and warm) 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!

WINEMAKING
The fruit for this wine was hand harvested October 3rd. 60% of the fruit received was immediately loaded into the press as a whole cluster, and the other 40% was destemmed into bins and soaked on the skins for 36 hours prior to being pressed. For fermentation 65% of the juice went into stainless steel and 35% when into our concrete egg. We used a Sauvignon Blanc focused yeast and the long cool fermentation lasted about 20 days. After fermentation the wine was blended together into a stainless steel tank and one 120 gallon puncheon (the lees were stirred regularly to build body), and aged for 4 months before being bottled young and fresh. Our goal in this wine is to have just a touch of the grassy character associated with Sauvignon Blanc but elevate the fruit characteristics that give the wine weight and depth.

WINE PROFILE
On the nose there is an abundance of grapefruit, gooseberry, and lime zest. The combination of grapefruit and gooseberry on the palate is balanced out with minerality, slate, and grassy notes. A medium bodied Sauvignon Blanc with high acidity.

PAIRINGS
Our Sauvignon Blanc pairs beautifully the fall classic pear, walnut, and gorgonzola salad with a maple dijon dressing, seared diver scallops, fresh oysters, or lemon braised chicken.