The Chardonnay estate is a barrel selection. Since each barrel ferments with its own yeast and ages at its own rate, each barrel becomes very distinct. Before bottling, Jason tastes each barrel. Those barrels which speak to the longest aging potential become the Original Vines Reserve. This estate, on the other hand, is blended from those barrels which offer the most immediate pleasure.
Certifed organic.
The oldest vines in the Willamette Valley are also among the last surviving vines of the Draper selection, a French import from the 1930s now extinct outside of our region. Picked by hand, the grapes were pressed in a combination of antique basket press and Champagne cycle press. Juice was run to neutral French oak barrels on the lees for 11 months without stirring, and bottled with a light filtration.
2018 gave us a warm start, cooling after mid-June. Summer was dry. with a record 90 days without rain. Days remained cool in spite of the dry weather, with reliable nighttime cooling drops of 25 to 30 degrees. Due to good conditions during bloom, crop yields were modest but healthy. We saw neither the need for radical thinning that we did in 2014, nor the low yields of 2011. And the timing of bloom was almost perfect, setting us up to harvest in late September.
By the time we began picking, the seasonal average temperatures were actually very close to the thirty year average. We managed the ferments more lightly than usual, and also pressed lightly, to encourage finesse from a dry year.
