Dusky Goose Pinot noir 2006
by Jean Yates
While Dusky Goose has maintained a low profile and very limited production over the last few years, its Pinot noir is considered some of the best made in Oregon. The wine is made exclusively from the owner's Estate vineyard, Dundee Hills Vineyard, by consulting winemaker Lynn Penner-Ash.
The name "Dundee Hills Vineyard" may not yet fall as trippingly from the tongue of Oregon wine lovers as some other hallowed single vineyard names, but it is one of the oldest Pinot noir vineyards in Oregon, and has produced many fine wines.
"I think this vineyard is an awesome site for Pinot noir," enthuses winemaker Lynn Penner-Ash. "It is a spectacular vineyard and near and dear to my heart in terms of quality!"
Penner-Ash should know: she worked with the vineyard's fruit at Rex Hill from 1988 to 1996, and today makes Pinot noir wine from the site for both the Dusky Goose label and her own Penner-Ash Wine Cellars.
Dusky Goose wines and Pinots made from Dundee Hills Vineyard fruit show up nationwide at the country's finest restaurants. Dundee Hills Vineyard fruit was used by Ehren Jordan of California's Faila Winery to make a Pinot noir that was placed in Restaurant Daniel in New York City, and Thomas Keller's French Laundry in Napa, California. Pascal Sauton of Portland, Oregon based Carafe Restaurant used the Dusky Goose 03 for his dinner when he was inducted into the "Academie Culinaire de France", one of the most prestigious French Chef Associations.
History of the Vineyard
The Dundee Hills property, 17 acres nestled in the Dundee Hills in the Willamette Valley, once belonged to John and Sally Bauers, who founded the vineyard in 1974. The Bauers sold grapes to Rex Hill, Elk Cove and others through the 70's, 80's, and 90's. When the property was purchased in 1998, the new owners, Neil and Diana Goldschmidt, replanted some of the blocks, cleared sections that weren't planted, and added different clones.
Located in the prime Pinot land known as the Red Hills of Dundee, Dundee Hills Vineyard is home to some of the oldest own-rooted Pinot noir vines in the Willamette Valley. The original plantings included Pommard, Wdenswil, and the so-called Coury Clone of Pinot noir (the latter appears to be a "suitcase clone" brought into Oregon by Charles Coury in the early 1970s) - as well as a "mystery" clone of unconfirmed origins.
The vineyard has a southern exposure and clay-loam soils of volcanic origin. It is managed for low yields - low yields tend to increase the intensity of the flavors of the grapes. The vineyard's mature vines, many of which are from the original 1974 planting, produce particularly good and complex fruit.
The earliest plantings at the site also included Gamay, Chardonnay, and even Cabernet. When the current owners purchased the vineyard in 1998, they decided that it was best suited for purely Pinot noir. The owners asked David Adelsheim, Oregon's foremost expert on Pinot noir clones, to replant the rest of the vineyard taking advantage of the latest clonal material.
The Vineyard Today
Today, Dusky Goose Wines' Dundee Hills Vineyard site is composed of 15 blocks (see table) with a mixture of different Pinot noir clones. "David did a fabulous job of balancing the vineyard," says winemaker Lynn Penner-Ash, "and the farming is superbly managed by Andy Humphrey."
Humphrey has a good site to work with. With a southerly slope ranging in elevation from 440-ft to 560-ft., the exposure and Jory soils combine to make it one of the earliest maturing vineyards in the area - an area, by the way, dotted with such other well-known vineyards as Arcus, Bergström, Maresh, and Erath Prince Hill. To take full advantage of the site, Humphrey uniquely hand-places shoots and carefully pulls leafs in the fruit zone to help get optimum ripening.
Besides Dusky Goose, the vineyard also supplies grapes to Penner-Ash Wine Cellars, Patricia Green Cellars, R. Stuart, and Adelsheim Vineyard.
Dusky Goose Pinot noir
"When the owners approached me about making the wines for Dusky Goose," recalls Penner-Ash, "we walked through the vineyard and talked about the style of wine they wanted to produce. We talked about what each block might bring to the wine, and we picked out what we thought were the best blocks for their style."
"I am always very gentle with the fruit," says Penner-Ash describing he approach to making the Dusky Goose Pinots. "I pretty much let it do its own thing." She focuses on small, indigenous yeast ferments, and she carefully manages fermentation temperatures.
She's also found that the vineyard's fruit seems to have an affinity for barrels from France's Cadus cooper. "Sometimes the red fruit is so high in fruitiness that it tends to dominate the aromatics," she says. "To mitigate that the barrels add just the right amount of spice to complement the fruit."
Even so, Penner-Ash is careful to let the Dundee Hills Vineyard speak for itself in the wines. "I want to support the lushness of the vineyard, and not overshadow it."
It is that lushness that seems to shine through in all the wines from the Dundee Hills Vineyard. "People put the wine in their mouth and they say 'Oh my God!' Somehow this site produces wines with an incredibly sweet and rich mid mouth feel - It has a high yumm factor," exclaims Penner-Ash, "I don't know how else to describe it!"
"There is an incredible dried cherry quality that is unique to the Dundee Hills site," she says. "The fruit smells like dried cherry tea, and then moves into a ripe red pear mouth feel. The fruit has a creamy textural feel when it is ready to pick, and in the winery it produces a very focused red fruited wine that is incredibly rich and sweet."
The Future of Dusky Goose Wines
The owners of Dusky Goose Wines, Linda Levy Carter and John Carter, purchased land adjacent to the Dundee Hills Vineyard in 2001 and hired Lynn Penner-Ash and Dundee Hills vineyard manager Andy Humphrey to plan and plant a new vineyard, named Rambuillet Vineyard. It came into production with the 2004 vintage, and the first wines from the site will be released in late 2006. The vineyard was planted with a selection of Pinot noir clones designed to complement the Dundee Hills Vineyard fruit. Future Dusky Goose wines may include fruit from both vineyards, and single vineyard designated wines will also be produced.
