Winemaker Notes
Quady North's signature Rhone White blend. Stone fruit flavors, including apricot, and nectarines predominate, with notes of honey and citrus. The wine runs the edge of crispness and unctuousness, with a lip-smacking quality.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Roussanne leads in this well-built white, a blend with marsanne, viognier and grenache blanc. It feels like a classic Rhône-style white, with scents of wheat and flavors of pear and white peach, with a hint of orange blossom in the background. It finishes clean, with a citrusy, slatey tang.
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James Suckling
A blend of marsanne, roussanne, viognier and grenache blanc with an attractive, pear fruit nose that offers plenty of sweet fragrance and interest. The palate has a very fresh core of peach flavor and a neat kick at the finish with chalky hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
This generous and fragrant blend includes Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne and Grenache Blanc. Floral and citrus aromas lead into a citrusy mix of Meyer lemon, orange and tangerine, with further hints of pineapple and papaya.
Full-bodied and flavorful, white Rhône blends originate from France’s Rhône Valley. Today these blends are also becoming popular in other regions. Typically some combination of Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier form the basis of a white Rhône blend with varying degrees of flexibility depending on the exact appellation. Somm Secret—In the Northern Rhône, blends of Marsanne and Roussanne are common but the south retains more variety. Marsanne, Roussanne as well as Bourboulenc, Clairette, Picpoul and Ugni Blanc are typical.
As the the largest region in the greater Southern Oregon AVA, bordering California, the Rogue Valley AVA grows the most diverse array of grape varieties compared to any other Oregon appellation.
The Rogue Valley AVA is actually made up of three adjacent river valleys—not just one as its name suggests—Bear Creek, Applegate and Illinois. These valleys extend from the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains, a coastal sub range of the Klamath Mountains. Most Rogue Valley vineyards are planted on hillsides at elevations of 1,200 to 2,000 feet where soils are metamorphic, sedimentary and volcanic.
On one end Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Tempranillo, Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc benefit from a warm and dry climate. To the west end of the Rogue Valley, cool-climate grapes like Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, Muscat and Gewürztraminer do best. Dolcetto, Grenache and Zinfandel also grow in the Rogue Valley AVA.
Early European settlers first started growing grapes here in the 1840s, the most famous of whom was a pioneer named, Peter Britt. He also opened Oregon’s first official winery (which later closed in 1907). Today, besides its great wines, the region is known for the Britt Music & Arts festival, which inhabits Peter Britt’s former hillside estate, and the Ashland, Oregon Shakespeare Festival.