Our latest releases are from the 2010 harvest. Find these wines at several retail locations and restaurants around the Portland metro area. Vincent is now available in New York City through Ice Bucket Selections, and we’re close on a permit to sell directly to shops and restaurants in the state of Washington. As always, join the Vincent Wine Company mailing list to buy direct from us. We ship many places in the U.S.
2010 Vincent Pinot Noir Armstrong Vineyard – $36 / $78 mag (very limited)
The Armstrong Vineyard is a young vineyard owned by Doug and Michele Ackerman, friends and old tasting group buddies who planted a choice spot on Lewis Rogers Lane in the heart of Ribbon Ridge. We are fortunate to source grapes here – along with Ayres (just up the road) and Seven of Hearts wineries, good company indeed. Our 2010 Vincent Pinot Noir Armstrong Vineyard is our top selection from this site, a two barrel blend of 115 and 667 clones from separate vineyard blocks. The 115 clone gave a dark, brooding wine with considerable density. Our one fermenter from this block was the talk of the winery. Wine this rich and dense from 2010? The 667 clone, from the steepest part of the vineyard, gave perhaps a more typical wine for the vintage, ethereal and more delicate. A blend of the two gives us the wine of the vintage here, with considerable power but moderate alcohol at 13.4%. Wine for aging, though it will be fun to try young. We blended half of two barrels of the 115 clone, one of them new so that the resulting wine saw 25% new oak.
2010 Vincent Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard – $36 / $78 mag (very limited)
This year’s Zenith Vineyard bottling is again from a thinner soiled block planted exclusively to the Pommard clone. The 2010 Vincent Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard is our sole output from one small fermenter of grapes from this top notch vineyard in the heart of the Eola Hills. As we did with all our grapes this year, we destemmed the clusters, crushed them lightly and let them sit until they began to ferment on their own, not initiating punch downs for approximately 10 days until fermentation was well under way. Fermentation peaked at about 90°F and we pressed after 17 days on the skins. We aged the wine in 3- and 5-year old barrels, so that the delicate nature of this 13.1% wine was not overwhelmed with oak spice. The result is a fragrant, slightly crunchy Pinot that is incredibly food friendly and should age well on its acid structure.
2010 Vincent Pinot Noir Ribbon Ridge – $24 / $54 mag
Our main wine this year is the 2010 Vincent Pinot Noir Ribbon Ridge bottling. This seven barrel blend is entirely from Armstrong Vineyard, from all three of the blocks we worked with. Same process in the winery, two and a half barrels were new and this bottling contains wines from the partial barrels that went into the vineyard designate bottling. This broader blend, including softer, lighter colored but wonderfully complex press wine, gives an aromatic, floral Pinot with considerable young fruit, less structure than the vineyard designate and more approachable younger. This is a delicious follow up to our main wine from last year, the 2009 Vincent Eola-Amity Hills bottling.
Our 2009 wines, for reference – both are sold out:
The 2009 Vincent Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills is approximately 80% from the Domaine Coteau vineyard on Walnut Hill, on the eastern slope of the Amity Hills. The soils here are Nekia series, predominantly eroded Basalt and very red. The vines are 10 years old and a mix of Dijon clones 114, 115, 667 and 777. The remaining 20% is from 7 year old Pommard clone vines from the Zenith Vineyard, in the heart of the Eola Hills. The wine was aged for 10 months in mostly older French oak with one barrel newly reconditioned. Eight barrels produced, 192 cases. SOLD OUT
The 2009 Vincent Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard is 100% Pommard clone Pinot noir from a single once-filled French oak barrel, selected for its finesse and lingering flavors. We think it is our best wine from the 2009 vintage. The Zenith vineyard is one of the most respected sites in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA or growing region. Just one barrel made, 24 cases. SOLD OUT
Winemaking
Our goal is wine made simply. There’s no ideology of controlling every aspect of the natural process of wine making, nor doing nothing in order to call ourselves “natural.” Wine is a human process, but our goal is making wines as simply as possible to show the grapes, the vintage and the place they came from. That’s our intent. We will do what we think is necessary to protect the stability of wine, but otherwise we want the wines to speak for themselves. No loads of new oak, no fancy tricks or at least not many, and probably not too fancy. Just a simple approach that we hope gives wines of fine aroma and texture that taste best on your dinner table.
Winemaker Vincent Fritzsche has produced wine for ten years, working harvests at local wineries including Evesham Wood, Belle Pente and Grochau Cellars to apprentice in the art of making exceptional wines in small winery settings. He attended some wine making classes through Chemeketa’s Northwest Viticulture Center and reads lots and lots about wine, grape growing and winemaking. He figures he still has a lot to learn, but hopefully so do we all.
