Wine & Spirits - April 2018 - 49

by side in our New York office, the difference was
striking. The pinot noirs grown in the deep soils at
Drouhin's Dundee Hills estate are rich, savory reds
without excess weight, their textures silken, their tannins gentle. The Roserock wines, on the other hand,
have a more rustic firmness to the structure, something a vigneron from Burgundy might describe as
minerality.
"At Roserock, there is rock everywhere. I like that
very much; I'm used to having rock in Burgundy. It's
good for reducing compaction; it's good for roots
touching the rock-when there is less water in the
soil, those rocks can give back some water, and it will
have a different concentration of minerals. So, rocky
soil is interesting from many points of view."
It's certainly interesting for the character of the
wine it grows. Drouhin pointed to a wide range of
factors-including the shallow soils with rock on
the surface, less available water in the soil and the
cooling influence of winds through the Van Duzer
corridor that slows ripening. The 2014 Zépherine,
a barrel selection from Roserock, is as quiet as the
Laurène, from the Dundee Hills property, though
more detailed in its savory tannins. Zépherine is a
wine with delicate intensity; its structure gives the
impression of tension.
The rocky soils of the Eola-Amity Hills have attracted
others to the region. Though more remote from the
prosperity of Portland than Dundee, this collection
of hills has sustained several generations of farmers.
From the first vinifera plantings in 1971 at Amity
Vineyards through to its approval as an appellation
in 2006, the Eola-Amity Hills have gained attention
for a distinctive character in their red wines, what
one grower described to me as a youthful, reductive
stink-or, translated to give the positive impression
he intended, tension.
It was a site in the Eola-Amity Hills that first
tempted Dominique Lafon to work in Oregon. Mark
Tarlov had just purchased the Seven Springs Vineyard
for his new project, Evening Land Vineyards, and
invited the Meursault-based vigneron at Domaine
des Comte Lafon to join his team.
Earlier, Tarlov had asked him to consult at Evening
Land Vineyards in California, but Lafon declined.
"To me, the success in California pinot noir was more
about richness and power," Lafon explained from his
office in Meursault. "It was not my style of wine, and
if I was going toward more elegance, it would not be
well received. So, I said, No, I don't think I should
go for that."
A year later, Tarlov called to say he was looking
at a vineyard in Oregon. Lafon was friends with the
Drouhins and, over the years, had developed friendships with other local growers. "So, I took a flight to

Portland and I visited Seven Springs. When I walked
the vineyard, I said yes. I could express myself with
the type of climate; you could go toward elegant wine
in Oregon without it being seen as something crazy
or stupid. That vineyard was amazing for the situation, the place, the amount of old vines, and its history-it always made great wine, but the grapes had
been sold to other people."
Lafon started working as a consultant for Evening
Land in 2007. He made a number of suggestions,
including the application of biodynamic viticulture,
which the team took up the following year. But he
also recalls cultural pressures that made other suggestions moot. Like when to pick pinot noir.
"At the time, I was thinking exactly how everyone
was thinking, that Oregon was a place for pinot noir.
At Seven Springs, we had a vineyard manager and a
viticulture advisor from the US. And in 2007, I had
a lot of pressure to pick the pinot very late. When I
said it was ripe, they said, No, you have to wait. There
was big pressure to wait. But there was no pressure on
chardonnay." The variety was relatively insignificant
in the region at the time. "So, I said, Go pick the chardonnay. It was no more than 22 Brix. Everyone said,
You are crazy." In fact, Evening Land's wine from
that early harvest is widely regarded as the catalyst
for the contemporary flowering of Willamette Valley
chardonnay. "At the time, there were a lot of people
influenced by California, and their goal was to make
the best of Oregon pinot noir like California," Lafon
recalls. "I said to Mark that our best wine will be the
most elegant, not the bigger one."
Lafon set out to discover the character of pinot
noir at Seven Springs, "rather than to say, 'We're
going to make a little Volnay out of Seven Springs.'"
It might be the same grape, but the vines are growing on completely different soils, and, even if both
regions are relatively cool, the climate is not the
same. "In Oregon, we have only sunshine until after
harvest; it doesn't rain, which is not the case in Burgundy. Maybe in Burgundy we look for a nice fruit
because we don't get it all the time. In Oregon, you
want to make it lighter."
At Seven Springs, Lafon started vinifying each
block separately, to determine whether the wine
could be presented on its own, or what role it might
play in a blend. "When you meet someone new, it
takes time," he says. La Source, Evening Land's top
selection, developed out of that process. "What we
called La Source was always from the same blocks.
It would go a little higher [up the hill] in warmer
vintages and lower [downhill] in cooler vintages; we
would taste blind, and [wine from] that middle part
of the hill would always taste more elegant, with the
best length."
Larry Stone, the Master Sommelier who built his

"In Oregon, we
have only sunshine
until after harvest; it
doesn't rain, which
is not the case in
Burgundy. Maybe
in Burgundy we
look for a nice fruit
because we don't
get it all the time. In
Oregon, you want to
make it lighter."
-Dominique Lafon

WINE & SPIRITS

APRIL 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - April 2018