Winemaker Notes
In 2002, founder Joe Dobbes embarked on the journey to create Dobbes Family Estate & Wine By Joe, a testament to his passion for crafting exceptional wines. Today, Dobbes Family Winery lives out the family ethos embedded in the name, encompassing everyone into their circle – from their founder to their cherished guests, vineyard partners, and team, to those who savor their wines all over the world.
They continue to work with Joe's trusted vineyard partners of 30+ years and have brought on a few of their own to showcase the very best of Oregon—windswept ridges and fertile valley floors, the terroir of Oregon is as varied as it is breathtaking.
The Dobbes wine portfolio is an invitation to taste the limitless possibilities of Oregon wine.
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.