Brandy of Pinot Noir
$75 per bottle (No Discounts) (375 ML bottles only)
Available for pick-up at the winery. Shipping to DC, KY and OR only at this point. Please call winery for shipping.
This is the straight brandy that was distilled from our 2020 Pinot Noirs that were so smoke tainted that they were undrinkable. A great deal of our wine was severely impacted and by the end of harvest we found ourselves with around 12,000 gallons of Pinot Noir that was absolutely unsellable due to the bitterness that the smoke taint causes. A friend who is a winemaker for a different winery told us he was distilling some of his ruined wine into brandy at a distillery here in Oregon. He said they sent over a few hundred gallons of their ruined wine to give distilling it into brandy a shot. We went over shortly thereafter and tasted said brandy. It was absolutely horrible. So, that idea seemed to be right out the window.
However, a couple of weeks later, owner/winemaker Jim Anderson was at his partner’s winery, Kelley Fox Wines. He met distiller Lynsee Sardell, who was working to convert some of Kelley’s smoke tainted wine into vermouth. Jim told Lynsee about the first failed attempt at brandy and she said, “You should let me try.” She came back a week or so later with some samples of brandy from our tainted wine and it was amazing. Clean, rich, pure and with no hint of the smoke taint.
Our Brandy of Pinot Noir is based upon Cognac. High end Cognac should have a richness of texture, sweetness on the palate born of the nature of the grape still resounding in the completely dry finished liquid as well as the barrels’ imparting their notes and enough heat from the alcohol that the whole package comes off as rich and satisfying. We think we have that here. We also wanted to show that all evidence of smoke taint was removed in this distillation process and that this brandy is both wonderful on its own and is an incredible addition of textural nuance to the grain distillates with which it teams to make our unique and uniquely Oregon whiskeys.
Just two barrels of this were used for this bottling. The distillate came out of the still at 155 proof. It was watered back to around 115 proof to go into barrel. It was subsequently watered to 100 proof just before bottling.
57 cases bottled, all in 375ml
