2006 Vintage Notes for North Willamette Valley

by Rollin Soles, Argyle Winemaker

 This was a very comfortable vintage with very little drama. What I call a "California Harvest"!

Spring brought plenty of sunshine and heat to set an extraordinarily large crop. This is quite a contrast to 2004 and 2005 poor fruit set vintages. We even experienced a few record-breaking days of heat in June and July. The Willamette Valley almost set a summer record for number of days over 90F (32.2C) at 21 days. 2006 had the third highest heat units since 1983. Interestingly, the top 5 heat summations include three years in this new millennium. Has our transition into the "New Millennium" led to warmer summers?

The greatest challenge to making extraordinary wine this year was to correctly estimate crop yield, then to accurately execute the crop thinning. Many vineyards were as much as 40% above their estimated yields! Seldom have we seen larger cluster weights. A contest here at my winery gave a record Pinot Noir cluster weight of 243g (normal range is 80-100 grams per cluster). Disease posed little issue throughout the season.

September brought us a bit of a scare with a week of precipitation accumulation of about 0.6 inches and cool temperatures. The long-range weather report of 18 September predicted a somewhat drastic collapse in sunny weather. The report of 19 and 20 September completely backed off the rain. The following week saw temperatures in the mid 80's F (30C), with a very desiccating east wind.

The lesson learned from the somewhat similar 2003 vintage was to wait out the warm dry spell. Those with irrigation could ride out the leaf drying effects of this desert wind from Eastern Washington State. At Argyle, we doubled up on the irrigation amounts to a still tiny 2 gallons/vine. The longer the vine remained healthy, the richer the flavors produced as vintage was delayed into October. Often grapes harvested at the end of the growing season are the most exciting in terms of fruit expression and structure.

A most glorious "Indian summer" ensued throughout the Northwest USA. Wineries and vineyards were able to spread their operations into a smooth steady pace without the usual threat of inclement weather.

Sparkling fruit picked during the cool week with some precipitation has bright fruit and high natural acidity. The table wine chardonnay is balanced and has fruit expression of melon and pear. Pinot Noir red wine fruit has lively red as well as black fruit with surprising structure. I believe that our lack of hesitation with use of irrigation helped significantly to allow the vines to deliver brighter fruit to the grapes than our efforts in 2003. It pays to learn from our past!

2007 Growing Season and Harvest Notes

by Rollin Soles, Argyle Winemaker

 I'm calling this vintage "The 2007 Vintage" up until the 27th of September, and "Son of 2007 Vintage" afterwards!

The 2007 growing season was picture perfect right up to the end of September. Weather that's not too cold and not too hot usually makes Argyle a very happy winemaker.

Often times, bad weather warnings are thwarted by the Autumn jet stream's ability to suddenly pop back up into British Columbia. This was not the case for 2007. The September 27th rain event that was predicted a week before became a reality.

Luckily, Argyle has over 20 years of experience with Oregon weather (even nasty weather) and believes in balanced irrigation to encourage leaves on the vine to stay healthy; leaves actively "pump" flavor into the fruit berries. We found over time that this activity can actually encourage slightly earlier ripening than dry-farmed portions. This earlier ripening - even by a couple of days - paid off for Argyle in 2007.

We went to the whip to pick a significant amount of our ripest fruit just prior to the night of September 27th. This, of course, meant that a significant amount of fruit had to ride out the storm. The result though seems to be great balanced structure showing off elegant, juicy fruit. There are going to be some very classy wines without heavy alcohol effect made from this vintage.

"The 2007 Vintage" portion has produced our finest Chardonnay and Pinot Noir still wine. The "Son of 2007 Vintage" portion has provided us with amazingly structured, balanced Sparkling and Riesling bottlings.

2008 Growing Season and Vintage Notes

by Rollin Soles, Argyle Winemaker

 Very dry and cold spring delayed heat accumulation leading to late bud break and late flowering. When flowering occurs in July (around end of first week in 2008), the weather is warm and sunny. This leads to excellent pollination and set of a rather large crop of grapes. But, we cannot guarantee that there is not enough sunlight and heat left in the growing season to ripen a "normal crop". Crop estimation becomes a very important feature of vineyard management! This year, the average cluster size was a bit lower than what we've seen over the last few years. If one defaults to the old, tired mantra of one cluster per shoot, they likely ended up significantly short in crop. But, its still critical to reduce crop by say 1/2 ton or one ton lower than normal.

The last years we had July flowering were 1991, 1993, 1996, and 1999, with none in the 2000's. Is it possible that new comers missed the historical lessons of almost ten years ago? If thinning is severe, the vine seems to miss the message that it actually has a crop to ripen. So, it is an important balancing act to get the crop not too low, and not too high, to ensure proper ripening before the rain starts and doesn't stop until next July!

August brought needed rainfall. More rain in August than any one month of March, April, and May! This shot of moisture, I am sure, helped the vine shift into veraison gear by September.

In 2008, Argyle started chipping away at sparkling fruit last days of September and first of October. Brilliant sunshine, brilliant natural acidity, and brilliant fruit flavors that seem to make some of the most memorable of Argyle Sparkling wines.

October 3 brought a good shot of rain, but less than predicted. In a normal vintage, this would not be good. But, the cold rain seemed to perk the somewhat droughty vines right up. Vintners were wringing their hands over some more predicted rain. Frost on October 11th knocked off some vineyards in the valley floor.

As usually happens, predicted rain was called off. Dry, Indian summer weather took hold. Ripening and picking occurred at a nice even pace. Last day of picking, 29 October.

White wines are bright and fruity. Nice white peach in Chardonnay, and fantastic, proper botrytis in our Riesling for very ripe Riesling flavors.

Pinots are very dark colored, berries are like biting into an apple texture. Very balanced, and seems to be something like '93 crossed with '99 character.

Rollin Soles