A snapshot of Oregon Pinot noir - 3 great resources
While preparing for an upcoming Blind Tasting + Theory webinar, I came across a fantastic podcast episode that—together with a very helpful winery website and YouTube channel—offers wine students a great snapshot of what makes Oregon Pinot noir from the Willamette Valley so unique and compelling.
The podcast is episode 465 from Levi Dalton’s I’ll Drink to That featuring Ken Wright. The fact that Dalton would have another awesome episode is no surprise—and his guest Ken Wright certainly delivers with an hour plus worth of insights about the history of the Oregon wine industry, its unique geology, clones of Pinot noir and his approach in the winery with the grape.
But what I didn’t expect was how amazingly useful the Ken Wright Cellars website was—particularly their sections on the several different vineyards they source fruit from. Spanning 5 different AVAs—the greater Willamette Valley AVA and four important to know sub-AVAs of Yamhill-Carlton, Ribbon Ridge, Eola-Amity Hills and Dundee Hills—the KWC site has write-ups on each of the vineyards with helpful details about the soils, geology, and some of the characteristics in the glass that shows up in wines from those vineyards.
For the uber-geeky, each vineyard profile also includes a link to the Everyvine profile and interactive map of the vineyard, such as this one for the Shea Vineyard in Yamhill-Carlton. If you scroll down further on the Everyvine profile, you’ll find details about individual blocks for each vineyard.
Screenshot source: https://www.everyvine.com/Pages/Profile?id=968&type=Vineyard
If you want info in shorter, more digestible nuggets, the Ken Wright Cellars YouTube channel also features short 2 to 4 minute "mini-profiles” of the Pinot noir from each of these vineyards that touches on how the unique terroir of the vineyard and AVA contribute to what’s end up in the glass.
Now this isn’t meant to be a promotion of Ken Wright wines. Though I have enjoyed most everything I’ve tried from them, there are tons of great Oregon Pinot noir producers that wine students can explore in their studies. American students will have the most abundant options but a few reliable producers that have fairly good distribution outside the US include Eyrie Vineyards (UK, Europe) and Domaine Drouhin (UK, Europe, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, etc).
Instead, the goal is to highlight a rare winery website that is also a highly useful education tool for wine students. The Willamette Valley of Oregon can be confusing with ten sub-AVAs (and likely more coming!) and many different soil types. For a grape such as Pinot noir that reflects the nuances of terroir so well, you could spend a lifetime exploring the diversity of its expressions in Oregon.
A delicious endeavor, indeed, however for wine students who know the basics but want to dive deeper into Oregon Pinot noir in the Willamette, it’s hard to know where to start. There are many great resources on Oregon wine out there and many rabbit holes you can go down. If your time is unlimited, the archives and features of the Oregon Wine Press are a great place to get lost in.
But if you’re preparing for an exam and need to maximize your study time, checking out the IDTT podcast with Ken Wright (and the KWC site/YouTube channel) after you read your textbook section on Oregon will go a long way towards bringing that snapshot of Oregon Pinot, and what makes it so compelling, to life.