History and Philosophy Vintage Report 2003 Winemaker Notes Spring 2002 Winemaker Notes Spring 2001 Winemaker Notes Spring 2000 Location (with Map)

Winemaker Dementia I had the pleasure of returning to Europe again last spring. After eating and drinking our way through Barolo and Barbaresco, as well as fixing Roberto Voerezio's labeling machine, I returned to France for the "work" of my trip. I wanted to see some friends in Burgundy, and then spend a concentrated week tasting in Alsace. My mission was to immerse myself in the styles and techniques used to produce grand cru Pinot gris and Rieslings. By the time I left Alsace, I had visited eleven domaines and tasted two hundred bottled and tank samples in four very full days. I then returned to Burgundy for one day and was blown away by tastings at Domaine Mugneret-Gilbourg and Louis Jadot. Two years ago, Burgundy was the emphasis of my trip, but Alsace completely captured my attention. This year Alsace was the emphasis, and Burgundy provided the moment of enlightenment. Do you see a pattern here? I seem to find inspiration where I least expect it. I think that there is a rational, or at least plausible, explanation. After ten years of winemaking, I am still not satisfied with my wines. I have been able to make some very good wines. Fantastic winegrowers sell me wonderful grapes from some of the best sites in Oregon. I have the raw material and the knowledge of winemaking. What I am searching for is the focus, the terroir in my wines. In Alsace two years ago I discovered that white wines - mostly Riesling and Pinot gris - could capture the same terroir, that somewhereness Matt Kramer talks about, that I knew existed in Pinot noir. As a result, I focused a great deal of attention on white wines in 1998. We picked the first Pinot gris from Shea Vineyard. It is a truly wonderful site - steeply terraced, south-facing, shallow soils, closely spaced - and the grapes were perfectly ripe. Here was a chance to make Pinot gris that reflected its terroir. I was inspired by the gris of Andre Ostertag and used them as a model. The wine has concentrated textures and flavors that are unique to the site - you can taste the terroir. In 1998 we picked the first Chardonnay from Dijon clone vines at Seven Springs Vineyard. Amazing. We harvested on the same day as the Pinot noir was picked - at 23.6 Brix! The Dijon clones have wonderful flavor and ripen before the fall rains. I always believed that Seven Springs would be a great site for Chardonnay, now we have vines producing ripe fruit that are suited to our climate and soils. You can taste the spice and feel the richness of this vineyard. While it was very satisfying to finally have some understanding of terroir in white wines, and actually make them, I found myself reexamining my Pinot noirs. I have been a preacher of terroir for a long time. I have talked about how important the vineyard is and about techniques to produce the best grapes from a given site. I have talked about how to extract flavors, cold maceration, barrel aging, etc., etc. Terroir in a wine is dependent on both the vineyard and the winemaking. Both can be manipulated to either bring out site-specific attributes of a wine or cover them up. Its easy to cover up or destroy terroir: overripe grapes and excessive use of oak masks a wine's terroir. What happened to me in Burgundy was a realization that my Pinot noirs were not all that I wished them to be. Granted, I was tasting great Burgundies in the hands of some of the most skilled winemakers in the world. I do not want to make Burgundy. I do want to understand how they grow and make wine from a great vineyard that allows you to taste that place so clearly. That is the essence of terroir. Again, it's a matter of balance. How to extract enough to from the fruit during fermentation, how to age the wine, when to rack and give the wine air, how much new wood is needed to support the fruit, when to bottle. I am looking at all of these manipulations in a new way. More is not better. I needed to achieve this balance in white wines in order to understand Pinot noir. Gratefully, some of the changes I wished to make occurred in the natural course of making the 1998 wines. I was committed to avoid the mistakes of the 1994 wines: overextraction and excessive tannins. I believed that shorter maceration and earlier pressing would be the key to keeping the wines in balance. A new press allowed us to gently extract wine from the pomace and avoid creating harsh tannins during the pressing process. We made very rich, intense wines reflective of the 1998 vintage and terroir of the vineyards without the veil of tannin as has occurred in past vintages. My next challenge will be to capture the flavors in years not quite as ideal as 1998. What I want to create is a more transparent terroir in my wines. What is it about Seven Springs Vineyard Pinot noir that makes it Seven Springs? I want to taste the nuances of each site. I want to make wines that will have the structure and concentration of fruit to age five or ten years. Something happens to older Pinot noir, flavors develop and the terroir of the site becomes more clearly defined. Richness and structure can exist in a wine with focus and finesse. These are the wines I remember. They are the wines I want to make. Thanks Mark Vlossak Back to top of page