APPELLATION
100% Yamhill-Carlton
BLEND COMPOSITION
100% Pinot Noir
CLONES
Pommard, Wadenswil, 114, 115, 777
AGE OF VINES
Planted in 1999-2001
BOTTLED
September 2022
BRIX AT HARVEST
24-24.5º
ALCOHOL BY VOLUME
14%
PROPER CELLAR LIFESPAN
10 -15 Years
PRODUCTION
748 Cases
VINTAGE HIGHLIGHTS
2021 was the 2nd warmest growing season we have ever seen since 2015. We also got to add a new term to the dictionary: “Heat Dome”. Three straight days of triple digit temperatures in late June breaking heat records for the Willamette Valley! Bud break started like usual in the middle of April. We had the driest March through May that the Valley has seen through 128 years of record keeping! Bloom, or flowering, also appeared on time in early/mid June. While late June brought the “Heat Dome”, our grapes made it through thanks to bloom being finished at all our sites and there still being soil moisture, so they grew like crazy over those three days of hellish temperatures. While July and August turned out to be exceedingly hot and dry, September arrived with with a few mild rain events that allowed us to fully ripen the grapes. The hot and dry summer made for fruit that was extremely clean, resulting in for excellent fermentations. All in all, mother nature gave us something to be grateful for on our 50th anniversary.
WINEMAKING
The fruit was hand harvested from Kalita Vineyard on September 25th and brought back to our Estate winery were 85% was destemmed and the rest left whole-cluster. Over a 12-day period the wine went through an ambient fermentation in 3 ton stainless steel tanks with punch-downs for cap management. The wine was aged for 10 months in French oak barrels with 10% new oak. This is our first vintage from the newly acquired Kalita Vineyard and it is also our first purchase of Yamhill-Carlton AVA vineyard land so it is very exciting. This is very different, dark fruited and rich Pinot Noir verses our delicate bright red fruited Dundee Hills we are accustom to be working with.
WINE PROFILE
Our 2021 Kalita Vineyard Pinot Noir bursts with classic Yamhill-Carton dark fruit notes: black cherry, cranberries and blackberries. The fruit is met by warm spices, espresso, and a woodsy forest floor followed by grippy tannins.
PAIRINGS
Serve with rich pairings such as roasted quail or duck, salmon on a cedar board, veal stew, grilled mushrooms, or a piece of dark chocolate.
THE STORY
Kalita EstateVineyard is located in the heart of the Yamhill-Carlton AVA in the Willamette Valley. This stunning, bowl-shaped vineyard is planted with Pinot Noir on hillsides facing South, Southwest and Southeast with elevations ranging from 525 to 750 feet. The site was planted in 2000 by Arthur and Sherry Kalita; it is currently LIVE certified and we are transitioning the vineyard to organic certification. We are thrilled to continue the two-decade legacy of creating superb, world-class Pinot Noir from the beautiful Kalita Estate Vineyard.
APPELLATION
100% Dundee Hills AVA
BLEND COMPOSITION
100% Pinot Noir | 100% Estate Grown
CLONES
Pommard UCD4
AGE OF VINES
Replanted in 1998
BOTTLED
April 2021
BRIX AT HARVEST
22.4°
ALCOHOL BY VOLUME
13%
PROPER CELLAR LIFESPAN
10 -15 Years
PRODUCTION
354 Cases
VINTAGE HIGHLIGHTS
It was clear something was different with the 2019 harvest when fruit flies were spotted
at Thistle Vineyard over Labor Day Weekend. The second sign was the dramatic shift in
the weather forecast. At the end of August, we believed we would have a “warmer and
drier” than average September/October. Sounds good huh?!?!? Then, at the end of
September we got 2.7” of rain… which is double the average, and we had one of the
coolest Septembers on record. We remembered and applied the key learnings from prior
similar vintages in our approach to the 2019 harvest – get the grapes as ripe as possible
with as little fruit degradation as possible. Even with a longer hang time this year the
grapes had less sugar, high pHs and high acids. Consequently, we based our picking
decision more on the taste of the juice and looking at the weather. We had 5 distinct rain
events from when we started harvest on September 3 to when we ended picking on
October 10th, and these individual rain events sometimes lasted multiple days. In the
end, we got as much ripeness as possible and are very happy about what we put into
barrel.
WINEMAKING
The grapes from this block were carefully hand harvested on September 21st. The
clusters were then sorted by hand to remove any flawed bunches and 100% de-stemmed
directly into 3 ton stainless steel fermenters. The wine was inoculated with our house
native yeast and spent 14 days fermenting with cap management done with only punch
downs. This was a cooler vintage with long, cooler ferments. After being pressed at
dryness the wine was aged entirely in French oak barrels for 16 months with with 29%
new oak. 14 barrels were hand selected for this blend.
WINE PROFILE
On the nose, this wine shines with notes of red cherry, craisin, allspice, toast, moss and
dried raspberry. On the palate, the cherry becomes darker, as the fruits and spice are
joined by oyster mushrooms.
PAIRINGS
This wine will pair with seared king trumpet mushrooms and beef tenderloin.
THE STORY
When Alex Sokol Blosser (our winemaker) was growing up, this block was not planted
to pinot noir, but to riesling. During this time Bill and Susan Sokol Blosser tried their
infamous and failed experiment of fencing it in and releasing a flock of geese to consume
the grass. Since then, the Sokol Blosser’s have always called it “Goosepen.” When we
had to re-plant the block due to Phylloxera, it was decided that the highest and best use
of that site was for pinot noir and not for riesling. This was not a failed experiment. To
this day, Goosepen is Alex’s favorite of our single vineyard blocks. It does not have the
rich tannins of its northern neighbor, Big Tree, nor the finesse of the Orchard Block. It
has fruit. A lot of rich fruit that can be heavy some years (2014) and complex in other
years (2012 and 2015). Drinking a glass of Goosepen always reminds Alex that
experimenting is a two edge sword; sometimes you get the goose, and sometimes the
goose gets you!
Our 2015 Dundee Hills Estate Pinot Noir epitomizes everything Sokol Blosser has stood for in nearly
50 years of winegrowing in Oregon. Crafted to be a true expression of terroir from our hillside vines and
Jory soil, this wine is made from a low yield crop that is dry-farmed for quality and comprised of
grapes that are all from Dijon, Pommard and Wadensvil clones. Our Dundee Hills Estate Pinot Noir captures and expresses the delicate fruit characteristics associated with this varietal, and we balance that with structure and ageability. This blend represents our entire Estate with barrels selected from nearly every corner of the property.
VINTAGE HIGHLIGHTS
2015 saw record heat growing degree days, encouraging the earliest bud break and bloom since we began growing grapes in 1971, and one of the earliest harvest dates on record. The large crop required fruit thinning to ensure we had enough fermentation space in the cellar. We finished bringing in fruit on September 22nd, the same day we started harvest in 2012. We have never seen a hotter year in Oregon. The one constant about growing grapes here is that every year is different and special. 2015 was a huge serving of both.
WINEMAKING
Handpicked, hand-sorted and carefully de-stemmed. Made with 100% Estate organic grapes, certified by the Oregon Department of Agriculture 100% barrel-aged in French oak for 17 months with 37% new barrels 13.5% alcohol by volume | 4,816 cases produced 10-15 year lifespan in a proper cellar.
PAIRINGS
Wild salmon, seared Ahi tuna, grilled venison sausage, duck, pork and rack of lamb. Our 2015 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir will hold up to the most intense flavors but not overwhelm.