A small south-facing portion of our Mount Richmond West Vineyard, Travis Block is named for our Vineyard Manager of 20+ years and features several different Pinot noir clones. The resulting wine represents a unique field blend unlike any of our other Pinot Noirs.
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 over 200 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 on rolling hills just outside the town of Yamhill to the 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.
Fruit from Mount Richmond is fermented in small, temperature controlled steel tanks, hand punched down twice daily, and barreled in french oak barrels. After 10 months of aging in barrels, only the barrels that are most representative of the Thunderdome profile are carefully blended to create a big, rich Oregon Pinot Noir.
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