Name: Summer Hike I
Start: 2022-06-12T10:00:00-07:00
End: 2022-06-12T11:30:00-07:00
Location: Elk Cove Vineyards

2020 Condor

This wine is intensely concentrated, with bright plum and dried leaves on the nose and black cherry and cinnamon on the palate. It’s silky smooth with a lengthy finish.

Condor is our only Single Vineyard Pinot Noir for the 2020 Vintage. In this challenging year, we chose to simplify our winemaking and declassify most of the fruit that normally goes into our Single Vineyard Pinot Noirs, blending it into our 2020 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. This makes the 2020 Condor a particularly unique wine and we do anticipate selling out quickly.

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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

Condor is sourced from Elk Cove Vineyards’ esteemed La Bohème Vineyard West Block. In 2020 we utilized gentle handling and still got amazing intensity from these 33-year-old vines. The wine was aged for 10 months in French oak and is already tasting delicious.

Winemaking

In 2007 Elk Cove co-founder Joe H. Campbell M.D. volunteered in a small medical clinic in Arequipa, Peru. Before returning home to Oregon, he asked his colleagues how he could continue to help. They told him the most critical health need was for food assistance.

The community had a kitchen that provided a meal to 600 of the neediest, but an additional 4000 often went without a daily meal. Because of Joe’s experience as a winemaker, he came up with a plan to produce a limited production wine each year, all proceeds of which would contribute to the hunger relief program.

Viticultural & Enological Data

Cases Produced
59

Reviews

Average Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (3 votes)

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

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1 star

Michael and Cheryl Dotten

Condor i a perfect gift

Cheryl and I have been buying Condor since Joe and Pat first started producing it. First we gave the wine to my clients, and when I retired, we gave it to very grateful friends. There hasn’t been a bad vintage in the bunch and we have kept at least one bottle of each vintage to sample with the Campbells and Fr. Alex the next time he is in Portland. Extraordinarily good Pinot Noir for an extraordinarily important cease.

1 year ago

Joan Dixon

Smooth

Enjoyed this 2019 Pinot Noir. It had a little sweetness on the palette and was very smooth.

1 year ago

Judy Leidy

Fantastic wine for a great cause

I’ve been sending Condor, along with its story, to my clients for several years. It gives them the opportunity to enjoy a glass of wine for good! Of course, we also order a case for ourselves. It is consistently excellent and we look forward to purchasing it every year.

3 weeks ago

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2020 Condor