St. Innocent Freedom Hill Pinot Blanc 2007

The aromatics of the 2007 Pinot blanc are awesome. These is lovely clarity and brightness to sweet floral and tropical fruit notes. Layers of sweet stone and pomme fruit flavors move across your palate with hints of spice. It has a lovely mouth filling texture with flavors that linger well into the finish. This vintage finshed completely dry.

Pinot blanc and Pinot gris are closely related to Pinot noir. Both are the result of natural mutations of Pinot noir. The entire Pinot family ripens beautifully in Oregon because our climate is perfectly suited to their needs. The resulting wines are blessed with ripe fruit and balanced acidity.

Pinot blanc has a complexity of pomme (apple and pear) and tropical fruit aromas that carry onto your palate. I believe Pinot blanc works differently with food than either Pinot gris or Chardonnay. It matches extremely well with shellfish and fatty fish dishes. It is especially good with mussels and tuna tartar. Pinot gris is a great match with leaner fish and other white meats.

For the 2007 vintage, 59% of our Pinot blanc was fermented in tank and 41% was fermented in new wood. The tank fermented wine retains the purity of fruit and the barreled wine adds a nice textural component that extends into the finish. While the 2007 vintage was challenging to winemakers because of the cool conditions and intermittent rains, the white wines matured slowly and gained many layers of ripe fruit flavors. It is a spectacular white wine vintage for Oregon.