2020 Vintners Select Pinot Noir
2020 VINTNER'S SELECT PINOT NOIR
Tasting Notes:
Two select barrels were chosen to create this limited release pinot noir. Aromas of black raspberry balanced with notes of vanilla lead into a structured wine with flavors of cherry, cola and hints of anise. This wine should cellar well over the next 7-10 years, but you could easily enjoy a bottle or two now. As always, an excellent food companion, we recommend lamb shanks with white beans or for a weeknight meal, ribeye on the grill.
Winemaking Notes:
The fruit was gently de-stemmed by a Euro Select into 1.5-ton fermenters leaving a remarkably high whole berry content. A two-day cold soak preceded inoculation done with a variety of yeasts designed to increase complexity and mouth-feel. Fermentations were punched down in the morning and pumped over in the evening for 12-14 days with temperatures peaking around 84°F. The wine was racked via gravity to settling tanks keeping each lot separate and was allowed to settle for two days before being racked to French oak barrels. The skins were shoveled into the press and pressed off to their own settling tank before racking. Keeping the free run and press wines separate gives us more flexibility come summer when we start blending. The wines were inoculated for malo-lactic and allowed to age for ten months. At the end of August 2021, the two selected reserve barrels were racked to neutral barrels for an additional year of aging. The wine was racked from barrel, blended in tank and bottled in September 2022.
Harvest Notes:
The 2020 growing season started with a mild winter and drier than normal spring. While there were some untimely rains in mid-June for most of the Willamette Valley our cool site meant that bloom came along almost immediately after and we were spared crop thinning by Mother Nature. The rest of the growing season was almost ideal with moderate day time temperatures and cool nights, leading to a long, slow ripening season. The fires that struck at Labor Day were nerve racking and many lost their homes making the worry about grapes seem insignificant. However, growing grapes and making wines is our livelihood and so we persevered. It again appears that our little bowl of a valley saved as we looked up to the smoky black skies and drifting ash but still had remarkably clean air in our vineyard. The lack of sun slowed ripening even more and we started harvest closer to our traditional date October 2nd. Great flavor concentration, balanced acidity and moderate alcohols means the 2020 wines will be excellent now and into the future.
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.
