Winemaker Notes
The Volcanique cuvée is a selection of outstanding barrels from vineyards J. Christopher works with in the Dundee Hills. The wine showcases the savory quality, the fruit purity, and the fine-grained texture that characterizes the deep, red volcanic clay of these hills. The 2019 is an excellent example, with its delicately floral fruit aromas, silky texture and structural finesse. As with all of their wines, it has the depth and structure to age gracefully for many years.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Boy senberries and cedar needles are the main aromas, flanked by notes of loamy soil and bittersweet dark chocolate. There is a beautiful balance here among bright red cherry fruit, silky tannins and energetic acidity. The wine feels silky and full in the mouth, with traces of iron and burnt sugar on a very long finish.
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Wine Spectator
A supple wine, with elegance and dimension, this red has generous raspberry and strawberry flavors accented by black tea and stony minerality. Ends with refined tannins. Drink now through 2030.
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James Suckling
This has a fragrant and lifted nose of toasted citrus peel, ash, wild strawberries, raspberries and cinnamon stick. Field mushrooms, too. Delicious balance of fruity and savory, with a medium body, sleek tannins and a zesty finish.
Located in Oregon’s Northern Willamette Valley, J. Christopher Wines is a boutique winery that specializes in Pinot Noir made in the traditional style of Burgundy, and in Sauvignon Blanc modeled after the superlative wines of Sancerre. The winery is owned by world renowned Ernst Loosen, of Weingut Dr. Loosen in Germany. Erni’s lifetime passion for the wines of Burgundy has led to a philosophy to produce elegant, nuanced wines in a distinctly Old World style with an emphasis on lower alcohol and a modest amount of oak. The wines have garnered an international reputation for their purity, balance and food-friendly drinkability.
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.