Et Fille Dundee Hills Maresh Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009
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Oregon's Willamette Valley is comprised of American Viticultural Areas that represent different soil types and microclimates impacting the profile of wines from those sites. The wines are grown in four of Oregon's distinct viticultural areas, or wine regions. We have a small test vineyard on Parrett Mountain, but also manage long-term contracts for blocks at six vineyards located throughout the Willamette Valley. We think that this creates diversity between our single vineyard designate Pinot Noir and adds complexity to our Willamette Valley and Heredity blends of Pinot Noir.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.