100% Sangiovese; Idiot’s Grace Vineyard in Mosier, Oregon & Hamm’s Vineyard in Lyle, Washington; planted 2007-2016; Columbia Gorge AVA; 66 cases produced; grown in soils from volcanic ash and loess over old flood deposits (Mosier) and basalt colluvium (Lyle); brought up in veteran barrels; ABV 11.9%.
I worked for a season in Alsace, in France, and among the many blocks of vines we farmed there was one just across a graveled road from an old cemetery, which sat by itself part way up the vast, vine-clad slope. The specific rows this grower tended ran just below the walled graveyard, and by at least one of the winery staff members the wine made from this block was never drunk–despite its lofty reputation–since the deep roots of those old plants had spent their many years drawing water which would have surely percolated through the remains of those who lay just uphill.
Most of the Sangiovese grapes for this bottling grew in proximity to the old pioneer cemetery in Lyle but–worry not–our vines are established upslope from the cluttered gravestones and their rattlesnake guards. They are upright and tidy plants (in a certain atmosphere they bring to mind The Day of the Triffids, if you’re familiar); each plant is trained to a single wooden stake. It is old-fashioned viticulture, hand-worked, organic and low-yielding, and it seems reasonable that the musculature displayed here is an inevitable mark of this challenging location. A smaller amount of Mosier fruit is included this year, the first red wine harvest from that young block. This wine is something we look forward to, those years when it gets bottled separately. I find it to be rugged and pretty, and a very good storyteller.
