Chehalem Grüner Veltliner Ridgecrest Vineyards 2012

I just returned from an incredible wine event organized by the Chehalem Mountains Winegrowers: Origin ’13.   I sampled some truly stellar wines while nibbling on food that will undoubtedly lure me into many future road trips to Newberg and Portland.  But before going into great detail about everything I experienced in the 24 hours I spent in Newberg, I wanted to highlight a wine that I tried at Origin ’13 that totally blew me away – Chehalem 2012 Ridgecrest Vineyards Grüner Veltliner.  I tell you, this is one of the most pleasing, most well balanced, most elegant, most sumptuous and most delightful wines I’ve ever tried.

Although my tasting notes can be found at the end of this piece, I felt it was also important to share the vintage and winemakers notes from Chehalem because the 2012 growing season in Oregon’s Willamette Valley had a lot of well-justified hype  – often described by many growers and winemakers as excellent, incredible and even epic.

Notes about the vintage (quoted from website): This was a uniformly excellent vintage in the Willamette Valley, moreso than the past few years where some winemakers read it well and others may not have. The weather was storybook, almost entirely positive, with the Grinch of hail in one or two localized sites proving we’re as vulnerable as Burgundy. The heat accumulations are the 5th highest in the last 16 years, putting ripeness in the league with 2004 and 1998. The perfectly warm and completely dry growing and ripening seasons kept disease away and pushed full ripeness without sacrificing acid structure. Check back later to see if it is even more than a great year. 

Notes from the winemaker (quoted from website): Grüner is accentuated by vintages that help amplify richness and spice in white wines, and 2012 was a near perfect example. This wine shows brilliant platinum color in the glass, light sweet fruit on the nose, and clean length and persistence on the palate. To elaborate, the fruit shows peach pit, lychee, honeydew, and tart green apple. The nose has punctuations of glycerin, honeysuckle, stone, white spice and blossom, and is both lengthy and bright to boot. Finish it off with exacting balance, salinity, roundness, a bit of silky texture, and a burst of acid. Wie schön (how lovely)!

Notes from me: Pure, clean, fresh, bright, vibrant, focused.  Honeycrisp apples and a zippy, zesty shot of lemon were highlighted by tiny hints of peach and white pepper.  Balanced by lively, solid acidity, the mouthfeel was silky and round while the finish was clean, crisp and refreshing. Oh my.

Had I known at the time that just 230 cases of this gem of a Grüner Veltliner had been produced, I may have showed up at home with a much lighter wallet – one case would not have been enough.  At just $24 dollars a bottle, my first stop when I return to the Chehalem Mountains AVA is going to be to at 106 South Center Street in Newberg – the Chehalem tasting room.