2020 Blanc de Blancs
Opening with white flowers, quince paste and fresh-baked croissant, this wine’s creamy bubbles and intense lemon-curd flavors are layered with notes of underripe apricot, lemon thyme and a light ocean spray salinity.
Part of our 2020 Trio of Méthode Traditionelle Single Vineyard Sparkling Wines. Three distinctive expressions of Oregon Sparkling Wine: Brut Rosé, Brut & Blanc de Blancs.
Vintage
Vintage 2020 was a challenging vintage with nicely concentrated wines. The COVID-19 outbreak brought labor and safety challenges that we overcame in step with increased seasonal demands in the vineyard and cellar. Luckily our vines are 6 feet apart and well suited for social-distancing, but creative solutions saved the day – we even recruited our sales team for our harvest crew.
Cool, wet conditions in spring led to a 25% lighter than average fruit set with small clusters and berries, ideal conditions for flavor intensity. Summer brought steady heat and cool nights, increasing our expectations for a fantastic vintage across the board here in the Willamette Valley. Then, in August and September, Oregon experienced one of its worst wildfire seasons in history, bringing with it worries of smoke-affected fruit. Ripening slowed until the winds shifted eastward and the skies cleared in mid-September.
The silver lining for Elk Cove is that our vines are located in the northwest corner of the Willamette Valley, where smoke effects were minimal. We will not release any wines that exhibit smoke taint, and have aggressively tested for it. We sent a great many samples to the laboratory in 2020. We’re confident that we made some fantastic wines from intensely concentrated fruit.
Vineyard
Elk Cove Vineyards purchased Goodrich Vineyard in 2014. A 69 acre property planted with 21 acres of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Goodrich Road sits just outside the town of Yamhill, Oregon in the heart of the Yamhill-Carlton AVA.
Goodrich Vineyard was planted in 2007 with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in high-density a format. The property boasts the exact same marine sediment (Willakenzie) soil as our Mount Richmond property and lies just a few miles from our Estate Vineyard in Gaston.
We were so impressed by the quality of the fruit from this young vineyard we decided to make a Single Vineyard Pinot Noir in our very first year of farming the site.
Winemaking
100% CHARDONNAY
Blanc de Blancs translates to “white from whites” meaning it is a white wine made from white grapes, often Chardonnay. Blanc de Blancs are typically linear with bright, citrus flavors.
Our Goodrich Blanc de Blancs is cool-fermented in steel tanks using a traditional Champagne yeast to retain the bright freshness of a traditional Blanc de Blancs.
Viticultural & Enological Data
- Vine Age 15 years
- Harvest Sugars 17.5
- pH 3.11
- Cases Produced 389
