Vintage

Vintage 2012 will go down as one of the finest in Oregon history in terms of quality of the raw materials. Mother Nature really smiled on us with not only a rain-free harvest season but perhaps more importantly with tiny berries and clusters. The small fruit size allowed us to effortlessly and gently extract the concentrated fruit and ripe tannins of the perfectly ripe grapes. Those beautifully small clusters and berries were lighter than normal, so yields were down and these wines will likely sell out at a brisker than usual pace.

According to owner/winemaker Adam Campbell “The wines from 2012 remind me and my folks of classic vintages like 1998 and 1994. Small clusters and berries give us an amazing skin-to-juice ratio, allowing us to be incredibly gentle through fermentation and still come up with powerful concentration and ripeness of fruit. It’s also great that 2012 wasn’t a super hot vintage, so we were able to produce very ripe but varietally correct wines with freshness of fruit and lower alcohols, most in the 13% range”.

Early reviews of the 2012 vintage use descriptors like “Stunning”, “Amazing” & “Epic” making Oregon winemakers giddy that 2012 could go down as the best vintage in our 50 year winemaking history.

Vineyard

The fruit for this all Pinot Noir Rosé is hand-harvested from Elk Cove’s estate vineyards.  For the Rosé, we choose both young and old vines from higher elevation vineyards on their own rootstock.  These give us the full flavor development and aromatics needed for a fresh white wine, within a framework of lower alcohol.