Winemaker Notes
Soléna is a combination of the words Solana and Soleil, celebrating the sun, moon, and cycles of life. Our story began in 2000 when our founders purchased the 80-acre estate which became our Domaine Danielle Laurent vineyard. Furthering their successful careers in the Oregon wine industry, Laurent Montalieu and Danielle Andrus gifted this vineyard to each other for their wedding, and began making wine under the label named Soléna after their newborn daughter.
Soléna Estate showcases the beauty of terroir in our site-specific wines. They craft delicious wine from our estate and other iconic vineyards around the Northwest. They're well known for ageable Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris all with Laurent's signature expressive aromatics and vibrant mid-palate. Visit our estate in Yamhill to see how they steward wines of legacy and purpose!
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.”
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.