Certified sustainable by LIVE. The 2020 season at Montinore was a game of two halves: at times challenging, at others ideal. After 18 years at the estate, winemaker Stephen Webber is well placed to roll with the punches and navigated the vagaries of the vintage (dry weather, meagre yields and a warm summer) with relative ease, turning out concentrated, complex and delicious wines.

The lion’s share (75%) of Montinore’s entry-level Pinot is drawn from their dry-farmed estate vines, with the balance coming from their sustainably farmed Tidalstar vineyard in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA to the south. Tidalstar, with its warmer microclimate and volcanic soils, brings juicy fruit weight to the perfumed, bright, silky Pinot from the home site. It’s a blend to enjoy from the word go. In the cellar, the fruit is destemmed and fermented in small, open-top steel vessels and matured in a mixture of stainless steel and French and Hungarian oak (20% new) for 10 months before bottling.

It's a bright, fruit-forward Pinot Noir, with the signature Montinore structure and brooding depth found throughout. Bursting with flavour, structure and energy, it’s an absolute cracker when considering the price.

The Reserve Pinot Noir is one of the estate’s flagship wines: an expression of the season and its best Pinot fruit. In 2019, three clones (Dijon, Pommard and Wadenswil) from four of the vineyard’s most prized blocks made the cut. Each block was destemmed and fermented separately in small open-top steel vessels to ensure full expression of clone and terroir. The final blend was assembled after maturation, which took place in French barriques (38% new) for 10 months.

The 2019 season was a challenging but classic Oregon vintage: cool, fresh and long, with mild spring conditions followed by a warm summer that finished quite crisp. This resulted in intensely concentrated Pinot Noir berries with lovely natural acidity and structural frame. In the words of winemaker Stephen Webber: “¬The 2019 Reserve Pinot Noir is a great representation of the best of the vineyard and a reflection of a delightful vintage.” As with the previous release, this gets better with air, so don’t be afraid to decant and allow this deep, brooding and complex Pinot Noir to unfurl in the glass.

Bald Peak in the Chehalem Mountains sub-AVA is the Willamette Valley’s highest point. The Laurel Vineyard sits atop Bald Peak at a lofty 381 metres and was originally planted to Pinot Noir in 1981 by owner John Albin for use in his sparkling and rosé programme. When Barnaby Tuttle first approached John to purchase fruit to make the first Bergspitze (mountaintop in German) Pinot Noir in 2009, many considered it a foolish endeavour. Surely the site was too cool and the fruit too lean? Again, Barnaby proved his detractors wrong, crafting an elegant and ethereal Pinot Noir that instantly made waves in the restaurant scene and quickly sold out. In Barney’s words: “It went viral”.

It wasn’t just the lofty elevation that drew Barnaby to the Laurel vineyard. The Pinot Noir clone is the Alsatian Coury, brought to the region from Alsace in a suitcase by Charles Coury in 1965. The soils are loamy and volcanic, rich in nutrients and with a unique ability to regulate temperature. The site is dry-farmed and managed organically.

As is the norm at Teutonic, the fruit was left on the vine for as long as possible before being handpicked, sorted, destemmed and fermented in open-top vessels using a pied de cuve started in the vineyard. After three weeks with daily punch-downs, the wine was pressed and settled before going to old barrels for maturation. Sitting at a subtle and restrained 12%, the 2021 bursts with bright fruits and elegant, ageworthy structure.

The Alsea Vineyard is the only coastal vineyard in the northern Willamette Valley. When Barnaby and Olga Tuttle first planted the site in 2005 on their friend's farm, it was met with a good deal of scepticism. Unlike most vineyards in the nearby Willamette Valley (this vineyard lies just outside the AVA’s border), Alsea is on the western flank of the Coast Mountain Range, just 30 kilometres from the ocean. Consequently, it is cooler and wetter than those sites on the eastern side of the range, and for those reasons, most thought it unsuitable for growing grapes. The Tuttles succeeded and have been crafting cool, refined, complex Pinot Noir from this site for 15 years.

Alsea is home to Bellpine soils—a variant of the famous Jory soils found in the Willamette Valley— which, coupled with the rainfall levels, facilitate dry farming. No chemicals are used; farming is organic, and the Tuttles use cover crops and seed balls that act as natural fertilisers for the soil. They also keep bees but don’t harvest the honey.

The 2016 vintage saw a return to more classic conditions after the three preceding warm years. As is the norm at Teutonic, the fruit was left on the vine for as long as possible before being handpicked, sorted, mostly destemmed and fermented in open-top vessels using a pied de cuve started in the vineyard. After three weeks, the wine is pressed and settled before going to old barrels for maturation.

As with all the Teutonic wines, Alsea Pinot Noir is built to last, and we’re pleased to be able to offer some bottle-aged examples from this unique spot. Perhaps Neal Martin summed it up best: “The Pinot Noir from the Alsea Vineyard is certainly great terroir, and a vertical demonstrated its propensity to hit a sweet spot 5-6 years after bottling.” 

The estate Pinot Noir combines fruit from Eyrie’s five estate vineyards: Sisters, Outcrop, Roland Green, The Eyrie and Daphne. All five sites are in the Dundee Hills AVA at various elevations, ranging from Sisters at 67 metres to Daphne at 260 metres. As you go higher, three things change: the soils get less sedimentary and more volcanic; it gets colder; and it gets windier. So, the Estate Pinot Noir from Eyrie is a great representation of the Dundee Hills AVA through the delicate, perfumed Eyrie lens.

All five sites are farmed organically. The team practises no-till farming and uses no insecticides, herbicides, fertilisers, cover crops or composts. It has been done this way since David Lett established Eyrie Vineyards in 1965, and little (if anything) has changed. The result is some of the state's healthiest, most diverse and organically rich soils.

The 2021 season was warm, with long, dry periods punctuated by short spells of rain. The summer was warm but brought into balance by a cool close to the season in September and October. Chilly nights preserved acid freshness throughout, something Eyrie values deeply. Handpicked fruit was destemmed and fermented naturally in small fermenters ranging from one-tonne bins to five-tonne wooden cuves. Ferments were hand-plunged twice daily before being lightly pressed and aged in primarily old oak (just 8% was new) for 15 months.

The Eyrie Vineyard is home to the original Pinot Noir vines planted in the Willamette Valley by Eyrie founder David Lett back in 1965. It is also home to the hawks that inspired the name of the estate—an eyrie is a bird of prey’s nest—and that grace the label of each wine. The seven-acre site is home to three clones (Wadenswil, Pommard and Upright) of own-rooted Pinot Noir vines, planted between 1965 and 1974. The sloping site faces south, rolling east to west and rising to 125 metres at its highest point. Like the other sites in the Eyrie stable, this vineyard is farmed organically and regeneratively to ensure a healthy network of soil organisms to support the wizened vines.

The Eyrie Pinot Noir is one of five identically produced wines from Eyrie’s vineyards. The collection represents a fascinating journey from 67 metres (Sisters Vineyard) to 260 metres’ (Daphne Vineyard) elevation in the Dundee hills, viewed through the Eyrie lens. Jason Lett describes the 2019 autumn as one of the most Burgundian he has ever seen in the Valley, meaning the rain and cooler days that usually occur in the winter arrived earlier and were more evenly spread. It was a moderate season with good acid retention across the board, something Eyrie values deeply. Handpicked fruit was destemmed and fermented naturally in small open-top, 11-hectolitre fermenters. Ferments were hand-plunged twice daily before being lightly pressed and aged in primarily old oak (12% new) barrique and foudre for 23 months.

Daphne Vineyard is the Eyrie estate’s highest, located at the top of the hill and reaching 262 metres at its highest point. Planted in 1974 to the Pommard clone, it’s home to just 0.6 hectares of Pinot Noir vines and produces intensely favoured wines from low yields of tiny bunches. Its location at the crest of a hill means its soils are very shallow, averaging less than ten inches of topsoils above large stone boulders.

Daphne Vineyard Pinot Noir is one of five identically produced wines from Eyrie’s vineyards. The collection represents a fascinating journey from 67 metres (Sisters Vineyard) to 260 metres’ (Daphne Vineyard) elevation in the Dundee hills, viewed through the Eyrie lens. Jason Lett describes the 2019 autumn as one of the most Burgundian he has ever seen in the Valley, meaning the rain and cooler days that usually occur in the winter arrived earlier and were more evenly spread. It was a moderate season with good acid retention across the board, something Eyrie values deeply. Handpicked fruit was destemmed and fermented naturally in small open-top, 11-hectolitre fermenters. Ferments were hand-plunged twice daily before being lightly pressed and aged in primarily old oak (12% new) barrique and foudre for 23 months.