Willamette Pinot Noir from Division Wine Company
12/28/18 -
As everyone begins to rouse themselves from the post-holiday lull, we thought we would shine a light on Division Wine Co.. one of our favorite producers doing exciting stuff out in Oregon.
Division is an urban winery in Portland, Oregon making incredible wines, predominantly sourced from the Willamette Valley, that are joyous and exciting expressions of this great winemaking region. Started in 2010 by Tom Monroe and Kate Norris, and featuring a marketing manager very dear to our hearts here at Chambers Street Wines in the figure of erstwhile shop manager Sophie Barrett, Division has an eclectic focus that includes a deep love of the Loire, Beaujolais, and the Northern Rhône. In a region that takes many of its cues from Burgundy, Division has gone out of its way to represent other styles and other grapes. Eclectic offerings include a Cot, numerous fantastic single-vineyard Gamays, some Chenins, a "Crémant de Portland", and Cabernet Franc.
Today, though, we'd like to offer two of their Pinot Noirs, from wildly different vintages, that are some of the most exciting wines I've had from Oregon. The Division 2017 Pinot Noir "Un" is their most well-known cuvée, and the 2017 is one of my favorite expressions of this wine. This is all the more remarkable because 2017 was an extremely challenging vintage in Oregon. We here at Chambers Street Wines tend to shy away from ratings and rankings, and there is no better example of the pitfalls of rating a vintage than this wine. Heat, rain, drought, and wildfires all tried their best to ruin the best laid plans of vignerons and winemakers all over Oregon, yet Division rode this bumpy road with aplomb. Especially anxiety-inducing were numerous huge wildfires in both the Coastal Range and the Cascades that surrounded the Willamette Valley with the ever-present fear of smoke contamination. While thankfully smoke taint was entirely avoided in the Willamette Valley, there are few things that make a winemaker lose sleep like seeing smoke curling up from the mountains in the distance. Tom and Kate managed to craft a wine that is a vinous reflection on the meaning of serenity. Beautiful notes of cherry and ripe raspberry on the nose are followed by an elegant palate that adds notes of dark chocolate and just a touch of baking spice that are integrated into fine, soft tannins.
The next offering is the Division 2016 Pinot Noir "Cinq", which offers an excellent counterpoint to the "Un". 2016 as a vintage was the polar opposite of 2017. A warm winter set the growing season off early, but after that the summer was perfect for the growing of Pinot Noir. This wine is sourced from the certified organic Armstrong Vineyard in the youngest AVA in the Willamette Valley, Ribbon Ridge. Volcanic Nekia soils in this vineyard are overlaid with marine sediment and lie atop basalt bedrock. Powerful, darker-fruited, and with a deep ruby core in the glass, this wine shows blackberry and black cherry fruit on the nose which give way to beautiful dark mushroomy character on the palate. The finish is long and expressive, redolent of fresh-tilled earth but with a deep, nutty, coffee note. This wine was aged in one new French oak barrel and one used, without any racking, for ten months. A harmonious combination of great fruit concetration and densely enumerated earthiness, this wine has 10-15 years of cellar ageing potential, though it is big and robust in the best way right now.
We hope you enjoy these lush, stylish, elegantly structured wines! Andrew Farquhar
