2022 Dry Riesling

2022 DRY RIESLING

Tasting Notes:
This dry old vine Riesling is well balanced with bright flavors of green apple and Meyer lemon balancing the mouth filling texture with notes of apricot and meringue.  A perfect match for seafood.

Winemaking Notes:
The grapes were hand harvested and immediately pressed off to minimize skin contact.  Pressing decisions are done by taste and the cycle was stopped at just over one bar of pressure to minimize potential phenolics.  After pressing the juice was allowed to settle four days before being racked and inoculated.  Fermentation temperatures were kept at 52° to 55°F and lasted about four weeks until the wine tasted balanced.  The wine was cold stabilized, crossflow filtered and bottled under screwcap in February 2023.

Harvest Notes:

The 2022 growing season started early when a warmish March had us envisioning an early bud break and subsequent harvest.  Then April came and the Willamette Valley was hit by a hard freeze event that threw everything in disarray.  Not every vineyard was affected equally by the freeze with damage ranging from total losses to spotty losses, to no loss at all and, because of the timing, some couldn’t tell if they had been damaged until weeks later.  Our estate Dunn Forest vineyard fell into the latter category and in the end, we were hit hard but it was not a total loss, we still had some fruit.  Summer came in cool and wet and by July the grapes were clean and healthy but weeks behind schedule.  Fortunately, a nice warm August and September, followed by a beautiful October helped the fruit turn the corner just in time for a hurried harvest when the rains began. 

Our estate vineyard, Dunn Forest, is LIVE certified sustainable and Salmon Safe. The vineyard is hand cultivated allowing us to respond to individual vine needs.