Resources

The 2004 Pinot Noir Vintage

Concentrated, Refreshing & Balanced

By David Zurowski, National Sales Manager

Jonathan Waters, sommelier at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, examines Pinot Noir clusters in a recent visit to Corral Creek Vineyards.

As new wines are released, vintage association can be a double-edged sword: hindering sales in years when consumers don’t understand the gifts nature has given us and stimulating sales when the masses are appeased. Vintage, simply the year the wine was harvested, embodies in its four-digit number all the year went through, whether it be persistent, dry heat or cool, sodden days.

Vintage plays a critical role in a wine’s expression, especially when the grapes come from cooler growing regions such as those in Oregon, northern France, and Germany. Warmer, easy-growing regions like those in California and Australia exhibit far less vintage variation, but also often lack the magic and surprise of cool-climate vintages as they search for perfect ripening.

Vintage is especially important when focusing on Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir grapes thrive during a cool growing season—one that is not easily manipulated by modern-day equipment, and therefore one on which nature itself has a more significant impact. Oregon Pinot Noir vintages have been, and will remain, interesting, intriguing, and often surprising.

At Chehalem, we value vintage variation. It stimulates the mind, allowing a blank canvas to present itself every year. From an artistic point of view, it gives us the opportunity to express our own illustration of the growing season through unique bottlings.

I feel the 2004 Pinot Noir vintage shows a great sense of concentration, refreshment, and balance. A reduced cropload and a warm growing season combined for an intense, pretty vintage—one our accountant may not like but that consumers will love.

Some insight on the vintage’s background:

In March 2004, the Willamette Valley saw several unusually hot days with temperatures pushing into the 90s. This early spring warmth, like the shot from a start gun, triggered an early budbreak, when the vines send out young shoots. But cool weather then returned, bringing growth to a halt.

This start-and-stop hurt crop yields. Because of the early shoot growth, the vines created abnormally abundant nitrogen. When cool weather returned, development stopped and the nitrogen was held in the plant. Once spring arrived in earnest, the nitrogen was released and killed off some of the grape flowers (each flower creates one grape berry) in what is called necrosis. As a result, some grape clusters were unsuccessful in forming fully, and many vineyards saw their crop size reduced by 40% or more.

The remainder of the 2004 vintage was relatively consistent, with warm summer days creating a beautiful concentration of flavor and colors, followed by light, quenching rains in late August and early September, which cooled temperatures, keeping 2004 from looking like 2003 and adding to the refreshing quality of the vintage. Nature granted us pleasant, warm but not hot weather for nearly three weeks prior to harvest, allowing for a beautifully balanced finish. Our 2004 yield may have been very small, but what yielded was especially good.

I invite you to enjoy our new releases of CHEHALEM 2004 Pinot Noir—an artistic expression of a nature-hewn vintage.

2004 Ridgecrest Pinot Noir

2004 Stoller Pinot Noir

2004 Corral Creek Pinot Noir

2004 3 Vineyard Pinot Noir