Wine & Spirits - Winter 2019 - 25

Bergström

Bethel Heights

OREGON | WILLAMETTE VALLEY
Josh Bergstrom's Sigrid has become one of the most stylish
chardonnays in the United States.

OREGON | EOLA-AMITY HILLS
Ben Casteel continues his family's legacy of producing site-driven
wines that speak to the Eola-Amity Hills.

JOSH BERGSTROM STARTED HIS BRAND with his
family in 1999, and through much of the first
decade he made delicious wines in a luscious
style, using lavish oak regimes and basing his
picking decisions on flavor. Then, in the fall of
2011, Bergstrom traveled to Burgundy as he
waited for his own grapes to ripen in an exceptionally cool Oregon vintage. He got to see firsthand the approach to harvest of winemakers he
held in high esteem, like Bernard Moreau and
Jean-Marc Roulot, who picked early, with little
regard, it seemed, for discernable flavor. The
level of trust in the integrity of the fruit and in
their own abilities served to change his approach
completely. He eased up on his oak regimes and
converted his estate vineyards to biodynamics.
"Restraint" became his new watchword. Ever
since, he's been fine-tuning his approach: In the
cellar, he says, he's finding new ways to get out
of the way. The results have been dramatic, earning Bergström Top 100 honors eight of the past
nine years.-P.J.C

JOSH
BERGSTRÖM

IN 1977, BROTHERS TERRY AND TED Casteel and
their families were swept up by the back-to-theland movement, trading their careers in academia for rural life on 75 acres of land northwest
of Salem. The property came with 14 acres of
newly planted vines, and they planted 36 more
in 1979; today, the surviving vines are some of
the last own-rooted pinot noir and chardonnay in the Willamette Valley. The Casteel's children took over in 2005, when Ben Casteel was
27 years old and rounding out his fifth year at
Rex Hill in the Willamette Valley. He took on
the new role with gusto, attempting to assert an
authority in the cellar that the grapes continually reclaimed. You could say the grapes won,
as Casteel refigured his winemaking to become
more attuned to the vineyard's personalities.
Ted's daughter, Mimi, also returned home in
2005, using her expertise in plant biology to help
the family navigate the threat of phylloxera.
She's since become one of Oregon's star viticulturists, and left in 2015 to start her own project.
However, the 2016s and 2017s prove that she
left the winery in good hands: The wines showed
radiantly in our panels this year. -S.L.

BEN
CASTEEL

2017 Willamette Valley Sigrid Chardonnay ($110,
95 points) Sigrid often sings with the rich timbre
of an opera soprano-throaty and in a high register.
In 2017, the high notes are as lean as they've ever
been: Bergström has built an intensity into this wine
without weight, a compact chardonnay with feathery edges, bright and leesy, with a salinity that frosts
the flavors and gives the wine tension despite its
concentration.

photo of Ben Casteel taken by Andrea Johnson

Top 100 Wineries

FOUNDED:

1998

OWNERS:

Dr. John and
Karen Bergström,
Josh and Caroline
Bergström

2017 Chehalem Mountains Winery Block Pinot
Noir ($85, 93 points) A tiny production that's
reserved for the winery's club members, this grows at
the most densely planted of Bergström's estate vineyards, hand-tended from pruning to harvest. It is also
a warm site, which lends itself to the use of whole
clusters in the fermentation. This starts out in a
tangle of purple herbs, dark oak and dark fruit, growing ever more harmonious with air, silky, cedary, the
fruit as sleek as a plum. The wine's weightlessness
echoes that of Sigrid.

Josh Bergström
VITICULTURIST:

Sarah Martin
70

CASES PRODUCED:

12,000
ESTATE GROWN:

95%

FOUNDED:

1977

OWNER:

Pat Dudley
WINEMAKER:

WINEMAKER:

ACRES OWNED:

2016 Eola-Amity Hills Estate Pinot Noir ($32, 93
points) As this entry-level wine is often people's first
introduction to Bethel Heights, it's what the Casteels
focus most attention on. It comes entirely from
estate-grown fruit, both young and old vine, and ages
nearly a year in oak barrels. The 2016, from a warm,
wet and early vintage, brims with spicy red cherry flavors, gaining complexity in fine notes of mushroom,
tea and tar.

2017 Eola-Amity Hills Temperance Hill Vineyard
Pinot Noir ($70, 92 points) Bergström draws from
multiple aspects and clones at this cool, high-elevation vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills. Wildly spiced,
with scents of sage, rosemary, pipe tobacco and that
signature Temperance Hill smoky cherry scent, this
wine delivers a mouth-filling succulence within firm,
mineral tannins.

2017 Eola-Amity Hills Flat Block Pinot Noir ($60,
93 points) Flat Block is a three-acre section of ownrooted Pommard-selection pinot noir planted in 1979.
A site with shallow, gravelly soils, it's what Ben calls
the metronome of the property-no matter how he's
tried to tweak it in the cellar, the wine turns out the
way it wants to turn out. The 2017 vintage is sleek
and savory, with deep flavors that range from plums
to spice cake.

Ben Casteel
VITICULTURIST:

Ted Casteel
ACRES OWNED:

CASES PRODUCED:

10,000
ESTATE GROWN:

100%

2016 Eola-Amity Hills Aeolian Pinot Noir ($42,
93 points) Bethel Heights launched this cuvée in
2012, focused on three blocks they planted in 2002
in the eastern part of the estate, where the vines
meet the winds that inspired the wine's name. The
2016 is lean, dramatic and savory, its tannins giving
it substance and texture.
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Wine & Spirits - Winter 2019

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