V² Uncorked

In the Vineyard

At our estate vineyard in Sheridan, the fruit is off the vine and the crew is transitioning their efforts to the last of the planting, prepping the ground for our new Pinot noir Clone 114 block, which will be planted in two weeks.

In Milton-Freewater, the last of the wire went up and we’re already pruning, tying the vines to the wire, and preparing for our first Syrah in 2024. Because of the cold winters, the wind machine is being installed this month to guard against the risk of frost over the winter and into the Spring.

In the Winery

All the grapes are in from the vineyards and we’re about 80% of the way through fermentation.  We’ve processed almost 52 tons of grapes over the past six weeks. We began the harvest on August 29th with our Rocks District Chardonnay, which is already showing amazing potential. From there, we harvested Pinot Noir 115 from our 2020 planting on the estate vineyard for our inaugural Blanc de Noir Sparkling wine, and Chardonnay (also from our 2020 planting on the estate vineyard) for our inaugural estate Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine. This was followed by our Sparkling Rosé!

We then continued with more Rocks District fruit, specifically Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Syrah, Albariño and Chenin Blanc (the latter from the Rogue Valley).

We then transitioned to the Willamette Valley, where we harvested Pinot noir and Chardonnay (and lots of it!). We harvested our estate vineyard on September 25th, and although we’re thrilled with all of the Pinot noir and Chardonnay, we’re super excited about our estate Clone 828 and Wadenswil Pinot noir, which just finished fermentation.

In the next few weeks, we will be monitoring the final fermentations and barreling wines for aging.

Putting aside 2023’s vintage, we bottled our 2022 Chardonnays three weeks ago and will be releasing them soon. We bottled three labels, each a clone-specific Chardonnay. All three are from the Eola-Amity Hills AVA – Clone 76 and Clone 95 from Stiling Vineyard and Clone 15 from the Eola Springs Vineyard. We can’t wait to get your feedback on each of them!

We also finished blending our 2022 Pinot noirs, with bottling scheduled for the week of December 12th. More on that in our next newsletter.

In the Tasting Room

As the peak of tourist season in the valley wraps up, we reflect on the many visitors that we had the pleasure of serving, both in Carlton as well as at the Tasting Outlook at the vineyard. As a reminder, if you’re in the Carlton area, please stop in for a tasting or a glass. You can book reservations here:

We’ve been pouring our soon-to-be-released Port-style dessert wines and taking future orders at a 25% discount, which will be ending on October 15th. In the coming week, we will be hand bottling the 2017 Rogue Valley Tempranillo Port-style wine and labeling it in addition to the 2019 Rogue Valley Grenache Port-style wine. We can’t wait to get them on the shelves and online in time for the holiday season!

In the Press

We have submitted several of our wines to Wine Enthusiast this fall. We’re pleased to share that our 2021 Estate Origin Block Pinot noir received a 92-point score. We are even more pleased that our 2021 Chardonnay also received a 92-point score, as this was the first time we’ve submitted our Chardonnay for any type of review! The 2021 Andrew Block single clone 115 Pinot noir received a 91-point score and our 2020 Estate Origin Block Pinot noir earned a healthy score of 89 points. Look for these reviews in the online edition (and possibly in the printed copy) of the November issue of Wine Enthusiast magazine.

We also entered two wines to Jeb Dunnuck and received 91 points for our 2021 Estate Origin Block Pinot Noir and 90 points for our 2021 Chardonnay, along with a lovely paragraph describing each wine.