The story behind Vintage 37 Pinot noir
The 2014 Vintage 37 Pinot noir is arguably our most exclusively produced and age-worthy wines we’ve ever made. Learn about its history direct from David Adelsheim.
Adelsheim first made a super exclusive (“only in the best vintages”) Pinot noir in 2006. At the time, several wineries, newer than ours, were coming out with very select Pinot noirs costing over $100. We decided, with our incredible older vineyards, we should be able to do that, too. We gave the job to winemaker Dave Paige and he had a plan – start with one of our most incredible single vineyard Pinots and then add a small amount from a complementary vineyard to put the wine over the top. We bottled the 2006 and it was intense.
But, at first, we didn’t have a name for the wine. We had a number of ideas – “Pinoz” (the plural of the grape variety name first used in 1394) was my early favorite but other people found it too suggestive! The wine sat around unlabeled for a couple of years, getting better. Finally, we came up with the idea of naming the wine after our sequential vintage number, i.e. our first vintage was 1978, so 2006 would be our 29th vintage. The wine became “Vintage 29,” and we designed a super elegant, dark blue label for it.
We made the wine five times and only in the “best” vintages. By 2014 (Vintage 37) a couple problems had emerged. First, the vintages that seemed like they were going to be among our “best” during fermentation and barrel-aging often turned out to be the ripest, richest vintages. But not necessarily the most age-worthy or intriguing vintages. Winemakers in the Willamette Valley were generally backing away from their flirtation (in the early 2000s) with ripeness and boldness, finding more balance – and joy – in the less warm vintages.
The second problem was less obvious. (Even today, not everyone would even agree that it is a “problem.”) As understanding of the role of vineyard climate and geology grew in the 2000s, many of the most respected winemakers in the Willamette Valley realized that the “purity” of a wine could be more important than the weight or complexity of a wine. Winemakers like Mike Etzel (Beaux Frères) and Josh Bergström moved away from blockbuster wines, in search of less ripeness and more vineyard-derived components.
My moment of awakening came in 2015 with a visit from Pierre-Henry Gagey, Thibault Gagey and Jacques Lardière, the CEO, son, and winemaker for Maison Louis Latour in Burgundy. They had purchased Resonance Vineyard in Oregon in 2013 and had set up meetings with a number of their new Oregon neighbors. We showed them a few of our blended Pinot noirs and several of our single vineyard Pinots. With the single vineyards, their noses were glued to their wine glasses. And with those wines, their comments all revolved around the idea of “purity.” They weren’t talking about body, alcohol, acidity, tannin – it was all about the purity of fruit in the nose.
It’s taken me a number of years to understand their thinking. The basic point is that a wine in Burgundy is all about the place it comes from. The way to see that place in a wine is in its nose – through the precision of smell that can only come from that one place. Thus, the most sought-after wines have to smell precisely of their place of origin. That level of “purity” can only come from a single vineyard wine.
The logic behind that thinking is on full display with the Vintage 37. I really wasn’t looking forward to tasting the wine because it was from the very warm 2014 vintage. But as Eugenia and I had seen in previous tastings of Adelsheim single vineyards from that vintage, the winemaking team under Dave Paige had done an excellent job of picking before the grapes were overtaken by ripeness. So, we were not surprised by the first sniff from our glasses was blueberries and miso with a little earthy note, yet all still remarkably fresh. That first sniff evolved pretty quickly over the next 15 minutes. It took on more brambly red, or even baked red fruit. Also, we saw some red licorice, anise with an herbal hint. I saw a fresh, wet clay smell, like the smell of Ginny’s potter’s studio. Eugenia saw “petrichor,” the smell of wet payment with the first rain.
We loved the nose but were also confused. I knew that part of the wine came from Bryan Creek and I keep looking for the telltale signs of that vineyard in the nose. That’s why I wrote “brambly red fruit” in my notes. But that wasn’t the dominant smell. In fact, there wasn’t a dominant smell. Instead, there were a lot of individual, interesting smells.
I emailed Matt Perry (our Assistant Winemaker) the next day, asking him to tell me the vineyard makeup of the wine. The computer program told him it was 50% Bryan Creek, Block 3 (which is Pommard clone.) And 50% from Calkins Lane, Blocks 1 and 2 (clone 115) fermented together. That was such a surprise, I wrote back, “Are you sure?” I could understand the Bryan Creek part, but Calkins Lane? I couldn’t find anything like what I conceive of as the dark fruit of that vineyard.
Bryan Creek Vineyard
In looking at the wine on the second day, knowing its vineyard origins, we realized what was going on. The winemaking decision to blend two very different vineyards resulted in a wine that tasted (and felt) better in the mouth than either of the two wines alone. The firm tannins that would have been present five years earlier have resolved into supple, smooth tannins. Eugenia said the wine tasted of cold, fresh Italian plums (remembered from her youth in Sonoma County.) She also found what she first called lemon peel, but then revised to blood-orange peel (which was more interesting than lemon.) The acidity in the wine is still obvious and it makes the wine a bit leaner than it will become. It’s still in the cran-apple stage.
Calkins Lane Vineyard
In making this wine, a trade-off was involved. To perfect the mouth of this wine, some confusion in the nose was allowed. Whereas you can offset one taste in the mouth by blending with another, perhaps opposite taste, that doesn’t work in the nose. You just add more smells, complexity if you will. But you lose “purity” – the precise smell that comes from a single vineyard.
And that is why Vintage 37 – 2014 – was the last time we tried to create a super exclusive Pinot noir by blending two vineyard sites. The wine marks a turning point for our winery, one that was further clarified when Gina Hennen took over the winemaking duties in January 2018.
So, is Vintage 37 ready to drink tonight? You could certainly drink it tonight, but I would advise cellaring this unique bottle to watch how it ages; perhaps five years – for the acidity to mellow and for the body to become richer. In essence, the tannins (mostly from Calkins Lane) aged more quickly than the acidity (more from Bryan Creek.) Overall, this wine is not aging quickly. It has developed secondary elements in the nose but no tertiary ones. Thus, you can have confidence that Vintage 37 will have a long life. Fifteen more years, easily, and probably more like 25 or 30.