2022 Raptor Ridge "Barrel Select" Pinot Noir

$35.00 USD

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From the estate...

Our Barrel Select Pinot noir is our most diverse and complex blend of 100 percent Pinot noir from our Estate Vineyard, and multiple vineyard sites throughout four of the now seven nested AVAs in the Willamette Valley. Our winemaking team “tunes” and “tweaks” various trial blends comprised of percentage-wise mixes from over 100 barrels hand-picked from our cellar before arriving at each year’s decision for the Barrel Select blend. Our intent with this wine is to craft a modestly-priced, excellent Pinot noir that is expressive of Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

In the Vineyard

We first noticed budbreak in the vineyard starting April 13th, 2018. The vintage started off with cooler temperatures and average rainfall, but soon changed to a dry and slightly warmer than normal growing season. Mid-September brought some much-needed rain to freshen up the vines and get us through to picking. We commenced picking September 19th to October 9th with no outstanding weather events or critters begging us to pick earlier. Our Pinot Noir vineyard sources all came in at averages of 24.0 Brix, 3.46 pH, and 5.3TA.

At the Winery

All Pinot is cluster-sorted with a small fraction of whole cluster at the bottom of select fermenters before destemming into small 1.5-ton fermentation vessels. Each Pinot noir lot saw on average 5 days of cold soak, and an average of 18 days skin contact. Fermented with WS and 3001 yeast to give a fruit forward, clean fermentation, the 2018 Barrel Select spent 10 months aging with 28.3% barrel intensity / 11.6% New French Oak.

Scott and Annie Shull have nurtured Raptor Ridge for 26 years. From its infancy as a “garage” winery when they hosted tastings in their home to the clearing of their vineyard in 2000 and opening of the tasting room in 2010, Raptor Ridge is the story of a hand-grown winery built to share joy through connection to the land, the industry and the broader community. Scott’s winegrowing vision is to cultivate quality, consistency, and intrigue – balancing simplicity of expression with layers of sensory complexity by crafting wines interesting to both the palate and mind. Raptor Ridge sources from our estate vineyard in the Chehalem Mountain AVA, Tuscowallame, plus a rich tapestry of select Willamette Valley sites – up to 12 in a given vintage spanning multiple sub-appellations in the region. These long-term partnerships with storied vineyards throughout the valley such as Meredith Mitchell, Temperance Hill, and Gran Moraine have given us more “ingredients” with which to blend and ultimately provide sensory complexity in our winemaking style. Tuscowallame Vineyard is an 18-acre site planted to predominantly Pinot Noir plus one and a half acres of Grüner Veltliner. It is comprised of 13 separate blocks, each planted to different clones and rootstocks that address distinct soil characteristics. The word, Tuscowallame, is an indigenous word meaning “where the owls dwell.”

Bottle Size .750ml

Quantity

Low stock: 6 left

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