Name: Flights + Bites
Start: 2024-05-11T00:00:00-07:00
End: 2024-05-11T23:59:59-07:00
Location: Elk Cove Vineyards

2008 Mount Richmond

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94 Points. Hot Wines. “Smooth and silky, delivering a root beer-like sassafras and anise character…”
– Wine Spectator (May 19, 2010)

90 Points “Forward and fruity, this is an easy-drinking bottle of pinot…”
– Wine Enthusiast (April 1, 2010)

90 Points “…A juicy, sweet midweight that offers lively red and dark berry flavors and slow-building cola and spice notes…”
– Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar (July 1, 2010)

90 Points “…Elk Cove Vineyards’ 2008 collection is first rate.”
– Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate (October 31, 2010)

Gold Medal at 2010 Pinot Shootout!
– Affairs of the Vine (February 1, 2010)

Vintage

There is a quiet kind of excitement in the Willamette Valley after harvest 2008. Phrases and clichés keep rolling on such as classic cool climate, vintage conditions that are only dreamt of, potential to show the best of what Oregon has to offer. Add to this, repeated references to perhaps one of Oregon’s best vintages, 1999 and understandably many in the valley are smiling. Oregon’s 2008 growing season started late, with bud break on average ten days to two weeks behind schedule and followed with a relatively cool growing season. Thoughts of the recent wet and cool harvest of 2007 had many aggressively thin vineyards to concentrate fruit and speed up ripening and ward off disease pressure. Yet as in 1999, a beautiful Oregon autumn saved the day! Fall was spectacular with sunny days and cold nights, producing the tiny berries and small clusters not seen since the 1994 and 1998 vintages, laying the foundation to produce extraordinary wines.

Vineyard

Mount Richmond Vineyard sits on Willakenzie soils in the heart of the Yamhill Carlton AVA. The site was purchased in 1996 as a partnership between winemaker Adam Campbell, his wife Carrie, and Elk Cove founders Pat and Joe Campbell.

The motivation for planting Mount Richmond was to emulate the wine quality from sites such as our esteemed Roosevelt vineyard. The vineyard now holds the honor as the largest vineyard holding of Elk Cove, totaling 105 planted acres.

Mount Richmond sits at 300-500 feet elevation, lower than the vineyards planted at the winery, which allows for earlier ripening. Planted in a high-density format (2100 vines/acre), similar to Roosevelt, Mount Richmond sits in rolling hills just outside the town of Yamhill just East of the Coast Range Mountains. In addition to the old vine pommard selection, planted from select cuttings off of Roosevelt Vineyard, the blend now also includes equal parts of Dijon clones 115 and 777.

Winemaking

All of Elk Cove’s delicate Pinot Noir fruit undergoes the same gentle handling through our gravity flow system. This allows us to achieve the elegance, texture and luscious quality that are the hallmarks of exquisite Pinot Noir.

Fruit from Mount Richmond is fermented in small, temperature controlled steel tanks, hand punched down twice daily, and barreled in 40% new french oak barrels. After 10 months of aging in barrels, only the barrels that are most representative of the Mount Richmond profile are carefully blended to create a big, luscious Oregon Pinot Noir.

Viticultural & Enological Data

Vine Age 12 years
Yield 1.8 tons/acre
Harvest Sugars 23.5 Brix
pH 3.68
Vatting Fermentation in small open top steel fermenters. 10 months in French oak.
Cases Produced 894

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Accolades

Wine Spectator

Wine Enthusiast

Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar

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Affairs of the Vine