The Story of Temperance Hill Vineyard
Temperance Hill Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA was a grower partner of ours for 31 years. We developed a great relationship, starting in 1985.
A bit about Temperance Hill Vineyard. We purchased grapes from that amazing vineyard from 1985 until 2015. In early 1985, we realized we could sell more wine than we had grapes. There were still very few vineyards, who were not making their own wine, just selling their grapes. But in what is now the Eola-Amity Hills AVA, stretching 15 miles north of West Salem, a number of people had planted grapes. Terry Casteel (Winemaker at Bethel Heights) took me around and introduced me to five growers and we purchased grapes from all of them that fall.
Mark Chien, the vineyard manager at Temperance Hill in those days, became a real friend. The grapes we purchased went into our Willamette Valley blends of Pinot noir and of Chardonnay. When Mark left to become a Vineyard Extension Specialist in Pennsylvania in 1999, Dai Crisp took over. Early in Dai’s tenure, he proposed a deal – he would replace a pretty useless block of old Chardonnay with grafted Dijon clones of Pinot noir if Adelsheim would pay for the plants (in exchange for discounts on the future grape purchases.) That’s what we did and in 2006, we made our first single vineyard Pinot noir from Temperance Hill Vineyard.
It was very different from the wines made from our Chehalem Mountains vineyards. But at that time, it made sense to have single vineyard wines from amazing vineyards around the northern Willamette Valley. However, by 2013, we realized that our future lay in our unique opportunity to focus on the Chehalem Mountains. We agreed to buy fruit from Dai through 2015 and then stop.
It was the end to our longest-running relationship with an outside grower,
a 31-year run of buying grapes from that amazing vineyard.
Photos courtesy of Kathryn Elsesser, Elizabeth Chambers, and Prince of Pinot