Our tasting impressions
The 2022 Zenith offers ebullient red fruit on the nose. Even more so on the palate and it's accentuated by bright energy that makes the fruit seem crunchy. The freshness belies its four years in the bottle. This is a serious Pinot Noir with real depth. There are tannins, but they are backstage. So, this is a delight to drink now, even if there are potentially more interesting notes to come.
About this wine
The Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard comes from this windswept Eola-Amity Hills site on Zena Road. Originally named O’Connor for the family who first planted it more than 40 years ago. Vincent leases a 1.4 acre parcel of Pommard clone Pinot Noir from the current owners, Tim & Kari Ramey. It's marine soils, in a band above the rich valley floor and red volcanic clay further up the hill.
A mix of whole cluster (less than 1/3) and de-stemmed fruit goes into 1.5 ton fermenters. Native yeast is introduced and malolactic fermentation occurs during the 19 day maceration. Only a few punchdowns and pump overs during the three week fermentation.
The wine ages for 18 months in French oak (20% new) in order to finish natural malolactic fermentation, bottled without fining or filtration, only minimum effective SO2 used. 125 cases produced.
About the Grape
Pinot Noir is an ancient grape from eastern France. Notoriously challenging, it thrives in cooler climates. Intense popularity resulted in plantings all over the world. It's typically light in color and body but can develop significant tannin.
Vincent's Vintage Report
2022 started with great alarm. Bud break started in mid-April as usual. But then we had a bad, freak April snow and then a hard frost, which affected some early growing vineyards and varieties significantly. We ended up with a decent sized crop, even larger than normal in later growing sites that escaped most frost damage.
The growing season timeline extended significantly. Flowering was in late June and for the first time in several years, we didn't begin the grape harvest until early October. That's old school Willamette Valley stuff, but we had incredibly warm and dry weather for the first half of the month, which isn't normal. Would the grapes overripen? Happily no! The later start to the growing season, a good sized crop on the vines, and the fact that even warm October days are way-y shorter than warm summer days all meant that the late warmth pushed us to ripeness. We finished harvesting around October 18 in mild sunny weather and the next day rain set in and the warmth never came back. What luck! All told, 2022 is a fantastic year with great freshness in the wines and just the right ripeness.
Vincent Wine Company and its owner/winemaker, Vincent Fritzsche are, in so many ways, a natural fit in the VDLT portfolio:
Perhaps the only departure from our usual suspects is that there is a group of wine cognoscenti who have discovered Vincent...in a big way. There's not a ton of press about him but in specific circles, he has achieved superstar status. As a result, his wines are distributed more extensively than many other VDLT partners.
What started as a hobby/sidebar in 2009, blossomed into a real Willamette Valley business 6 years later. He moved into a new cellar in Amity recently and had space to welcome in his friend Saul Mutchnick of Championship Bottle (one-stop shopping for VDLT visits).
While his wines are natural-ish, he is not looking to make natural wines. He uses the minimum effective sulfur, so the wines are stable. If you want to learn how to identify grapes in blind tasting, practice with Vincent's wine. Their transparency and purity are palpable.
Two of Vincent's wines are bottled with a different brand name - Fritzsche. They are both Cabernet Sauvignon, which he purchases from an elite Napa Valley vineyard and bottles in Oregon.
We are delighted and excited to climb onto Vincent's bandwagon. We also are entirely confident that once you taste the wines, you will understand and embrace the buzz.
