Winemaker Notes
At Archery Summit, they embrace traditional winemaking techniques as well as Pinot-centric technological innovations, enabling them to craft the very best wine from each vintage. Painstaking efforts including hand-farming and harvesting have helped them forge an international reputation for being one of the finest Pinot Noir producers in the world. Over the past 25 years, they have acquired five estate vineyards planted to 80 acres of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris. The winery is located in Dayton, Oregon in the Dundee Hills. The Archery Summit winery and estate vineyards in the Dundee Hills use sustainable practices and are Live Certified. Stop by for a visit!”
Ribbon Ridge is a regular span of uplifted, marine, sedimentary soils (called Willakenzie), whose highest ridge elevations twist like a ribbon. An early settler from Missouri named Colby Carter noticed this unique topography and gave the region its name in 1865—though but it wasn’t declared its own AVA until 140 years later, in 2005. The AVA is enclosed by mountains on all sides between Yamhill-Carlton and the Chehalem Mountains, and is actually part of the larger Chehalem Mountains AVA. Its soils have a finer texture than its neighbors with parent materials composed of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. Given its presence of natural aquifers in this five square mile area, most vineyards are actually easily dry farmed!
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.”
