2022 Vintage Summary: Twelve months ago, at the end of April, there was not a lot of optimistic thoughts to have about what the 2022 vintage was going to look like. A valley-wide frost event had seemed to have decimated massive swaths of young shoots and that there might be 10-15% of a normal harvest overall and none in some places. In the 50+ year history of the Oregon wine industry this was as grim a time across the board as probably has ever existed. Coming on the heels of the devastating wildfires of 2020 that basically ruined any and all Pinot Noir fruit still hanging (another vintage with nothing to bottle and sell seemed to have the possibilities of actually being financially ruinous as opposed to just a massive gut-punch). There was a 2-3 week stretch over the last part of April and beginning of May where it seemed like you could feel the impending doom hanging over the valley like some sort of supernatural storm cloud. By late May we realized that we would be receiving fruit beyond what we were expecting just a few weeks prior. Grapevines have, seemingly, a capacity to go through their life cycle even in the face of some serious adversity. Secondary buds had shown up and were turning into shoots and those shoots had flowers on them. By mid-July it was clear that in some vineyards were going to have fruit sets higher than what we would have anticipated at any point during the year! What was once a time of feeling depressed and finding it hard to have higher spirits turned into a scramble to prepare for a harvest of a size we never would have expected at any point! When the dust had all settled and the fruit was all in, fermented and sent to barrel it turns out we had our second largest harvest ever, surpassed only by the 2021 vintage. On top of it the quality seems to be not only better than hoped, but truly excellent. The Pinots are just starting to turn the corner from being relatively raw wines to beginning their polishing phase where they start to strut the first looks at their final selves. It is exciting to see. Loads of red fruit and velvety textures seem to rule the day in 2022. We will have our darker fruited sites and our lighter sites but, in general, the best characteristics of each wine from each vineyard are what we are experiencing as the front and center natures of the wines. So, a roller-coaster ride for sure; fast moving highs and lows with a little more excitement than we would prefer, but in the end, everything is fine and we had a great time living the experience.
VINEYARD SIZE: 26-acre vineyard, ~2.8-acre PGC blocks
VINIFICATION: Multiple fermentations with all done in 1.5 or 1.75 ton bins with whole cluster on the Dijon 115 ranging from 10-50% while 100% destemming on the Pommard and Mariafeld.
PICKING DATE: 10/02 and 10/04/18 TONS/ACRE: 2.99
OWNERS: Todd Hansen PRODUCTION: 168 cases bottled
Winemaking and Notes:Lia’s Vineyard, to us, is about the unusual (in Oregon) combination of soil types due to the change in elevation that the vineyard has over a relatively small amount of overall acreage. That is what makes this vineyard fascinating and, in our cellar, totally unique. The Pommard at higher elevation in volcanic soil produces intense, sultry and concentrated Pinot Noir and the Dijon 115 leans to a much more structured and savory style since it comes from the marine soil at the bottom of the vineyard (this is still in the middle of the overall hillside). The Mariafeld is at an even lower spot on the hill than the Dijon 115 and it adds its own little thing to the whole situation.
This bottling marks the 9th vintage we have received fruit from this vineyard although we have only bottled this individually for the past 7 vintages. Over the years this wine has moved the way the vineyard has which is to say in an entirely positive direction. In 2009 we were interested in the vineyard as we had just begun getting fruit from Olenik Vineyard below it but the farming was far off what it needed to be in that vintage for us to begin a relationship. In 2010 and 2011 we received fruit but not exactly what we wanted. Even in 2012 when, as noted, we started in the sections we thought had the greatest potential the overall quality of the wine was good to very good with the latter being the rarer barrels. In 2017 we started to see movement to more sustainable and organic practices with a corresponding uptick in the quality of the fruit we are receiving. In 2018 that surge has become so prominent that the very good barrel is rare and the excellent barrels are what we now use for this bottling. This still follows along historic lines with 12 barrels coming from the Dijon 115 sections, 7 from the Pommard and 1 from the Mariafeld which acts almost like a binding agent for the other two clones. There is an aromatic element to it that is far more floral than it has been in the past vintages and the wine is a bit more inviting while now showing more intense and sophisticated tannin structure than in the past. It’s full of space for one to explore rather than being a wine that simply rushes at you with a full-throttled intensity. This wine is quite integrated at a very young age which is surprising given the dispirit clones, vine ages, elevations and soil types. As we have explored more vineyards just outside the eastern edge of the Ribbon Ridge AVA we have found these incredibly dynamic, floral and simply lovely Pinots that are d
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