Winemaker Notes
The beautiful 600 ft elevation SE facing La Colina Vineyard was thefirst vineyard holding and it’s been an exceptional site from the very beginning. It turns out many of our favorite barrels in the cellar year after year. Aromatically, Crowley uses a small amount of whole cluster which lends amazing complexity and layering as well as solid structure. La Colina has amazing unique character, highlighted by tea and citrus components. As with all Pinot Noir, La Colina is fermented with indigenous yeast only, after a 10-12 day cold soak period. The winemakers press and settle 48 hrs and age underground in mostly neutral French oak barrels. Typical raising lasts 14-16 months with malo lactic fermentation happening naturally. We bottle with minimal SO2 and do not fine or filter.
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.