BELLE PENTE

Vineyard & Winery

Current Releases

Brief descriptions of all of our current release wines can be found below.  Prices listed are retail at the winery.

2008 Willamette Valley Pinot Gris

For the first time, more than half of the grapes in our Willamette Valley Pinot Gris are estate grown!  In 2007, we added 2.5 acres of Pinot Gris grapes at Rivenwood vineyard, adjacent to our property, and are farming it as an extension of our estate vineyard.  The balance of the grapes come from Walker, Whistling Ridge, and even a little bit from Murto! 

Vinification occurred in 1000 Liter foudre, stainless steel tanks, and neutral barrels (roughly 1/3 each).  This combination preserves freshness but also adds texture and viscosity.  The wine is fermented dry and bottled with less than one gram/liter of residual sugar, and undergoes a partial malolactic fermentation.

Muted aromas of apple and pear carry over to the ripe but focused palate, offering good weight balanced by 6 grams/liter of acidity.  This is a textbook, "old school" Oregon Pinot Gris with the usual Belle Pente "enhancements".  Enjoy it with whatever graces your table over the next few years.

779 cases produced                              $16.50/bottle     

2006 Reserve Pinot Gris

Pinot Gris fans take note - this is something you don't want to miss!  In 2006, we left a portion of our oldest Pinot Gris vines "hang" for several weeks beyond the normal harvest date in hopes of making a late harvest desert wine.  Unfortunately, the grapes didn't get quite ripe enough for a "stand alone" dessert wine, but they were harvested significantly riper than the rest of our Pinot Gris - so we decided to build a Reserve bottling around them.  Our style of Pinot Gris has always been closer to Alsace than Alto Adige, and this wine takes it to another level.   Although the aromatics are rather restrained, the wine explodes on the palate with rich, ripe, viscous tropical fruit, accented by an almost smoky, briny minerality (grilled mangos at a beach barbeque?).  The residual sugar (2%) is balanced with adequate acidity.  A thoroughly intriguing wine - a bit "over the top," and eminently enjoyable! 

 218 cases produced               $22/bottle                 

2008 Willamette Valley Riesling

Stay tuned for tasting notes!

 189 cases produced                  $18/bottle                

2006 Willamette Valley Gewurztraminer

This is our third (and final) vintage from Hyland vineyard in McMinnville (we are actively seeking a new source).  The wine features a somewhat restrained floral, spicy, nose and a broad, rich palate.  It strikes a wonderful balance between the hedonistic side of Gewürztraminer and it's more restrained, food friendly personality.  This wine will make a wonderful accompaniment to traditional holiday meals.

145 cases produced                       $18/bottle             

2008 Belle Pente Vineyard Chardonnay

Our Chardonnay comes from a little 2 acre parcel planted in 1999 (our daughter Riona's birth year).  It is planted on the steep southwest facing slope that greets visitors as they come up the driveway, with rows running up & down the hill  from north-east to south-west.  In planting on a westward exposure, we defied the conventional  wisdom at the time, which was that Chardonnay should be grown on an east facing slope, presumably because many of the Chardonnay  vineyards in the Cote d'Beaune have that aspect.  But a closer look the maps of Burgundy show that much of Corton Charlemagne (one of the greatest Chardonnay vineyards on the planet) actually slopes  off to the west ... so we decided to give it a shot.

The fruit  coming off this little parcel has been impressive since 2004 (the first  year of full production), but 2008 marked a real watershed year for the  wines made from it.  With 10 years of age, the vines are out of their  whacky adolescence and beginning to behave like refined, cultured,  spirited young adults.  We've fine-tuned our vineyard practices to get  the most out of the row orientation to optimize sun exposure on the  fruit (removing all lateral shoots in the fruit zone, and about half the leaves on the north-west side of the row).  And we've developed a  winemaking protocol that appears to be expressing the best attributes of the site.

We pick the Chardonnay on two days, taking the first half  at the very beginning of the harvest cycle for freshness and acidity,  and the other half towards the end (usually 10 days to 2 weeks later)  for more evolved fruit flavors and aromas.  The grapes are crushed and  pressed, and the juice is settled for 48 hours, with no sulfites added.  The juice is then barrel fermented, half in Oregon oak and half in  French oak, with only about 15% new barrels in the mix.  Elevage is over 9 months with frequent lees stirring, and the wine is assembled,  filtered, and bottled right before the next harvest.

Upon tasting the wine several months ago (for the first time since bottling in the fall of 2009), it was clear we had really hit a "sweet spot".  The long  2008 growing season allowed us to capture a wine with great old-world  freshness and acidity, complimented by new-worldly ripe flavors  reminiscent of tropical fruits.  The oak provides an exotic accent, but allows the fruit/site to speak clearly.  The wine has concentrated flavor authority, but is also light on it's feet.

This is without question our finest Chardonnay to date.  It has vindicated our unconventional planting decision, and is proviing convincing proof that given the right site and careful work in the vineyard, Oregon can produce Chardonnay at the same world-class level as our Pinot Noirs.

 272 cases produced                            $30/bottle   

2009 Willamette Valley Gamay Noir (Estate Bottled)

This is our first release of a 100% Gamay Noir wine!  Although we've had a few rows of this Beaujolais native planted in our estate vineyard since 1994, the wine has usually found it's way into our Cuvee Contraire (rose-style blend).  But in 2009, one barrel was sufficiently interesting to merit it's own bottling, so here it is!

On first impression, this wine might remind you more of a "little wine" from Piemonte (like a Barbera) than a classic Cru Beaujolais.  The fruit is primary, and although there is some tannin, there is not any real structure.  With air, the grapey, spicy, peppery aromatics of Gamay emerge, and the palate softens.  It is an intriguing, non-Pinot experience!

This wine is very limited, so we ask that you respect the 3 bottle limit so that we can spread it around a bit.

25 cases produced                              $25/bottle     

2009 Murto Vineyard Pinot Noir

Warmer years are always kind to higher elevation sites like Murto Vineyard.  The old vines, planted in 1978, are also quite resilient and able to handle weather-induced stress; they barely flinched during the heat spikes of 2009!  We have made a vineyard designated wine from Mike and Robin Murto's Dundee Hills vineyard ever since our inaugural vintage in 1996.  So for many of our longtime customers, Belle Pente and Murto are almost synonymous.

This 2009 version is very expressive, with dried cherry and strawberry/ raspberry jam aromas that jump out of the glass, accented with the characteristic Murto spices:  cinnamon, nutmeg, Asian 5-spice, sandalwood, white and black pepper.  The red fruit carries over on to the medium-bodied palate, balanced with fresh acidity and ripe tannins. Complex, spicy, & earthy, it is a terrific rendering of the vintage and a textbook 2009 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir!

Although this wine certainly has sufficient structure for at least several years in the cellar, it has a youthful exuberance that cries out "drink me now!"  Resistance is futile...

588 cases produced                          $35/bottle     

2009 Belle Pente Vineyard Pinot Noir

This marks the 8th vintage of this "flagship" Pinot from our Belle Pente Estate vineyard.  It is assembled primarily from lots that originate on the east side of our vineyard.  These blocks get good morning sun, but are sheltered from the more intense late afternoon heat.  Planted primarily to the Pommard and 115 selections in relatively deep soil at over 1800 vines per acre, these blocks yield wines that are structured yet approachable in their youth.  It is a "junior" version of our Estate Reserve intended for earlier enjoyment.

Aromatically intense, this wine smells like summer!  A herb garden potpourri of lavender, thyme, rosemary, and anise weaves with scents of violets and rose petals.  The fruit is reminiscent of ripe blueberries with a hint of brambly black raspberry.  The texture is smooth and sappy, with silky tannins and balancing acidity.  Hints of roast coffee and chocolate linger in the background.

This wine is an absolute delight today, but should also respond well to a few years in the cellar.

 638 cases produced                              $35/bottle     

2008 Estate Reserve Pinot Noir

Since it's first release in 1997, our Estate Reserve Pinot Noir has represented the "best of the best" from our vineyard, the epitome of our winegrowing efforts each year.  It is released just shy of three years after harvest, to coincide with the annual International Pinot Noir Celebration, where it was once again a featured wine at this year's 25th anniversary event.

A number of factors converged to make this perhaps our most compelling Estate Reserve to date.  Two thousand eight was the latest vintage on record at  Belle Pente (until 2010!), and bore some resemblance to 1999.  In all of these years, a  picture perfect October came to the rescue of a very late season.  We achieved nice maturity  of a relatively low crop, and the  resulting wines  are nicely concentrated with moderate alcohol levels.  All of our vines reached 10-15 years of age, and their root systems have now penetrated into the mother rock, extracting more complexity every year.

The core of the Estate Reserve is always a barrel selection from our best blocks, which include the original 1994 planting (always the most complex), and the Wadensvil block planted in 1998 on a steep south-west hillside (generally the most concentrated).  But in 2008, many other sections put in stellar performances, so the "traditional" Estate Reserve blocks only contributed a little over half the blend.  It was really exciting to see some of these other sections "step up"!

The final assemblage consisted of 18 barrels from 5 of our 8 blocks of Pinot Noir.  Two thirds of the blend is from the "old school" Oregon workhorse selections of  Pommard and Wadensvil (in roughly equal quantities), and the balance is comprised of Dijon 115 and 777.  The finished wine is almost analytically perfect:  13.8% alcohol, 5.6 grams/liter of acidity, and a pH of 3.55.  This is what one might expect to see in a Grand Cru Burgundy from a great vintage!  The wine is superbly balanced, and in a good cellar, will last forever!

The following description from Steve Tanzer's International Wine Cellar describes the wine much more eloquently than I ever could:

"Bright ruby-red.  Heady, spice-accented scents of red and dark fruits  and flowers, along with notes of allspice, licorice, mocha and incense.  Fresh, precise and deeply concentrated, with sweet raspberry and  mulberry flavors picking up spicecake and candied rose qualities with  air.  Shows impressive tenacity and clarity on the extremely persistent  finish, which is given shape by fine-grained tannins." 93 pts

 450 cases produced                            $45/bottle

    $95/Magnum (1.5L)

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