There are aromas of juicy apple, pear, white peach and honey in the nose of this wine. In the mouth these fruits reappear together with subtle flavors of fennel and tarragon.
Detailed Info, Previous Vintage Notes, Reviews:
From the winery:
BACKGROUND When two clones of Auxerrois (ohk-sair-wah) arrived in Oregon from Alsace in 1977, we had barely
heard of the variety. Still, after tasting some experimental wines made at Oregon State University, our interest was piqued. It
turns out that Auxerrois, like Chardonnay, Aligot?, Gamay, and 10 other varieties, is a medieval cross between the noble Pinot
noir grape of Burgundy and an ignoble variety, Gouais blanc. Auxerrois is the name of the duchy around the town of Auxerre,
near Chablis, but the variety is not grown there now. In fact, there are probably only 500 acres of the variety worldwide. It is
only a major variety in Luxembourg, where its early ripening is a real plus. It is considered a second-class citizen in Alsace,
used somewhat interchangeably with Pinot blanc, but the occasional bottlings of this variety alone have remarkable purity.
VINEYARDS Starting in the mid-1980's, we planted the variety sequentially at three different vineyard sites. Wines made
from the first two plantings never gave us reason to bottle them on their own. However, our third planting, at our Ribbon
Springs Vineyard, coincided with our increased understanding of how to grow and produce white wines in our region (specifically
by avoiding drought stress in the vineyard and bitterness in our winemaking regime.) The Ribbon Springs block, just 1.65
acres, was planted in 1990. The 2003 vintage was the first significant crop.
GROWING SEASON What a crazy year! A stretch of warm weather in February jump-started the vines, so bud break
occurred on March 29th, much earlier than usual. A combination of factors - a touch of frost, a tiny critter that caused "short
shoot syndrome", and bad weather at bloom - took care of crop thinning for the year with no human intervention necessary.
June, July, and much of August were incredibly hot, so we were not totally displeased by our heaviest August rain storm in a
couple decades. A nice period of dry weather then lingered, beginning in mid-September, allowing the flavors to mature
coolly and fully. On September 15, among the first of the season, all 6 tons of Auxerrois were harvested.
WINEMAKING In our cool climate, production of white wines requires not only optimum grape ripeness, but also gentle
handling of the fruit during the winemaking process. Following a light, whole-cluster pressing, the juice was settled for 24
hours to separate the clear juice from the gross lees. Fermentation took place at cool temperatures in stainless steel tanks, and
malolactic fermentation of the wine was prevented in order to retain all the gorgeous fresh fruit aromas possible. The wine
was lightly filtered prior to bottling in April 2005.
