Winemaker Notes Spring 2004 Spring 2005 Vintage Reports: 2005 2004 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 Order

VINTAGE OVERVIEW With a string of lovely vintages, many people have asked me about the differences between recent vintages and if there are exceptional wines from a particular vintage. Here is my evaluation of each of the recent vintages. 1998 At the time I released the 1998 wines, I considered this to be the best vintage since I began making wine ten years earlier. Moderate weather throughout the summer was followed by a dry fall. Low crops at most sites produced ripe fruit in dry conditions. Our wines were very fruit forward with enough structure to last a decade. I produced my greatest ever Pinot noir, Seven Springs Vineyard in 1998. The 1998 Shea is also very lovely. 1999 The only vintage better than 1998 was 1999. An extremely late bloom produced great apprehension that the rains would come and we would have a total wash out vintage. Instead, Mother Nature blessed Oregon with a beautiful October and all the fruit completely ripened. The wines have very layered, multi-dimensional flavor profiles with good acidity and solid tannins. This is a vintage of aging wines: the Seven Springs will easily last 15 years. Those of you with cool cellars and a lot of patience will reap your rewards in the next decade. I produced my second best Seven Springs Pinot noir 1999 (equal to my 1991). We also made our only vendage tardive wine, the 1999 Pinot gris, Shea Vineyard. 2000 This vintage does not have the signature of either 1998's fruit or 1999's structure. This is a vintage of terroir: the flavors of the site. All of the wines are very balanced. The vineyards reign supreme and the wines very accurately reflect their site specific aromas and flavors. It will be a good vintage for horizontal tastings. It is very hard to pick a favorite - I like them all. 2001 This was a very great vintage for St. Innocent. Beautiful weather and a dry fall produced ripe, but not overripe, fruit. The only challenge was the large amount of fruit set, giving the potential for huge yields. We cut fruit early and severely. The result was low yields... almost too low. Half of our Pinot noir acreage yielded under 2 tons per acre. I believe that both the 2001 Freedom Hill and Brickhouse Pinot noirs are my best ever from those sites. 2002 A mirror image vintage of 2001 for Pinot noir. Again, we cut early and most Pinot noirs yielded at 2.0 to 2.2 tons per acre. The big story was the white wines in 2002. These are the best white wines I have ever produced. The 2002 Pinot gris, Vitae Springs is my best ever. And the 2002 Pinot blanc, Freedom Hill ain't too bad either. This brings me to 2003 and it's time for my harvest report... 2003 HARVEST REPORT Pinot noir loves a long final ripening phase. We usually pick Pinot noir in cool, dry weather with a bit of moisture in the ground. This weather pattern is what makes Oregon such a great place to make Pinot noir. Problematic vintages result from the fall rains coming early, sometimes as early as late September (1995). This forces us to pick under-ripe and sometimes water-logged fruit. Many vintages have a bit of a déja vu character. Not 2003. This was DEFINITELY a "something completely new and different" kind of vintage. It started innocuously enough... 2003 began with our usual spring weather in Oregon: it rained. May and June were slightly warmer and sunnier which hastened the time of bloom by 7-10 days - around June 15th. It continued to rain on and off until July 2nd, after which the sun came out and the rain stopped. In a normal summer, we get no rain from the 4th of July until late August. High temperatures rarely exceed 95 degrees. The end of July and August saw warmer than usual temperatures, no rain, and clear skies. It rained the weekend of September 7th (1.5") and again September 16th (0.25"). At this point, the grapes were ripening without problem. Then it got hot. A very dry NE wind started to blow. The fruit started to dry out, sugars began rising as the berries dehydrated. On Sept. 27th it was 94 degrees! This does not happen in Oregon: 54º, 64º, even 74º, but not NINETY-FOUR DEGREES in the last days of September. There were reports of sugars as high as 29º Brix. I did not want to make late harvest Pinot noir. The positive side was that the pH's were still low (good acidity), the flavors were becoming very lovely (although slowly), and there was no rain in sight. The weather report predicted a week of cool cloudy weather. My dilemma was pick now at high sugars (high alcohol wines) or wait for the cool weather and hope the sugars would drop as the vines recovered from dehydration. I felt that the flavors were still not reflecting fully ripe fruit so, I decided to wait. These were unusual conditions. The combination of high sugars, good acidity, and potentially very ripe skins could produce intense wines, potentially too intense. I decided to ferment with shorter macerations, press earlier, and limit peak temperatures for all the Pinot noirs. The limited rain would mean low nutrient juices and the high sugar and acid would make it harder for the fermentations to complete, so I added extra nutrients and increased my yeast inoculum. We picked Chardonnay on the last two days of September, just after the onset of cool, cloudy conditions. The fruit was fantastic; easily the most flavorful Chardonnay ever. We slowly picked Pinot noir over the next four days, all with very well developed flavors, good acidity, and only slightly elevated sugars (24.5º Brix). On October 5 & 6 we finished by picking almost half of our fruit - all the Seven Springs and Temperance Hill Pinot noir, both Pinot gris and the Pinot blanc. It started raining that night and dumped a couple of inches. The entire harvest was over in just eight days. The young Pinot noirs have flavors of ripe fruit, balanced acidity, and sweet tannins. I put these concentrated wines in a lower percentage of new oak so the total tannins do not become excessive. The Shea vineyard Pinot noir is especially good. Both Chardonnays have lovely forward fruit. For the first time we were able to ferment the Freedom Hill Chardonnay entirely in used barrels. I believe this will better frame its inherent minerality and further accentuate its rich textures. 2003 has the potential to be a great vintage. Mother Nature helped us out with a week of cool weather allowing the flavors, sugar and acid to come into balance. Remembering that Pinot noir is about finesse guided my choices. I am very happy with the results. Thanks, Mark Vlossak Winemaker Back to top of page