Description

VINTAGE 2023 required experience and patience that was rewarded with essential
hang-time and ripening.
The growing season started cool, then May sunshine brought an average bloom
in mid-June followed by a glorious summer. We enjoyed many classic 80-degree
Willamette Valley days, with nighttime highs staying down in the 50s even in August,
typically the warmest month here in Oregon. The only exception to these consistent
diurnal swings was a single big heat spike in mid-August. We anticipated picking
in early September. However, some fortuitous rain events allowed us to push back
harvest and we were thankful for the additional hang time.
Harvest came early, but not too early. We brought in beautiful fruit and we were
pleased to still be picking Pinot noir into early October. When you have fast
accumulation of fruit sugars, cool weather can be a welcome respite with even small
amounts of rain helping the grapevines regulate and slow ripening. One of the reasons
why Oregon Pinot Noir is so prized is for its freshness of fruit, and you can only get
that vibrancy when it’s under 50 degrees during picking.
2023 brought amazing fruit quality, but our production was down, especially on cool-
climate white wines like Pinot Gris. Being an estate grown winery, we must follow
Mother Nature’s lead as we cannot buy fruit to increase production. Smaller yields do
mean a smaller crop and less wine, but we embrace vintage variation. Another great
benefit of being estate grown is that it’s our decision exactly when to pick. Rather than
rushing to bring fruit into the cellar, in 2023 were able to play the odds and wait out
the rain on blocks that needed additional hang time to get the flavor development we
needed.

VINEYARD: The fruit for this all Pinot Noir Rosé is hand-harvested from our estate
vineyard sites in the Willamette Valley. For the Rosé, we choose both young and old
vines from higher elevation vineyards on their own rootstock. These give us full
aromatic and flavor development as well as great freshness of fruit within a framework
of lower alcohol.

WINEMAKING: Pinot Noir fruit for our Rosé is hand-harvested and gently whole
bunch pressed with limited skin crushing, which makes virtually a “white Pinot Noir.”
The wine is fermented cool in stainless steel tanks. Then carefully selected lots of
fermented red Pinot Noir juice is blended back for color and texture. Our Pinot Noir
Rosé is finished completely dry.

VITICULTURE & ENOLOGY:
Vine Age: 8-50 years
Harvest Sugars: 23 brix
Vatting: Free-run juice is cold fermented in
stainless steel tanks. Select Pinot Noir juice
added for texture & color.
pH: 3.25
TA: 5.4
Alc: 13.50%

REVIEWS:
2022 Pinot Noir Rosé – 92 Points & Best Buy – Wine & Spirits Magazine
(April, 2023)
“If you could put strawberry blossoms into a bouquet you’d have a sense
of how this pink bursts from the glass, bright, generous and expressive. Its
flavors are round and juicy, exuberant with berry fruit that’s as red as its
assertive color. Delightful with chilled prawns.” — Patrick J. Comiskey