2019 Nemarniki Vineyard Pinot Noir

91PTS. JAMES SUCKLING

List Price $45/btl

The 2019 vintage was outstanding – we brought in nearly perfect handpicked fruit in early October. This wine is a beautiful garnet -sliced strawberries with citrus, spice and some cedar character. Medium body, medium tannins and a firm finish. Always poised and balanced. This may well be our most polished Pinot Noir to date. The one word to describe this wine would be: “Graceful”. Drinking well now, but will age with grace.

Our focus is on single vineyard Pinot Noir from cool sites which we believe have the potential to make the utmost stellar wines in all of Oregon. Our Pinot Noir fruit comes from Diane Nemarniki’s pristine estate vineyard in the Chehalem Mountains AVA. This sustainably dry farmed vineyard is meticulous and Diane hand tends to her vines as if they were her own children. At 750 ft elevation this site is on Loess soil (wind-blown silty loam) called Laurelwood which produces wines with rich red fruits and earthiness.

WINE MAKING

The grapes were handpicked the first week of October and carefully sorted both in the vineyard and on the sorting table. A four day cold soak allows for up front extraction and then a long slow fermentation. Once primary fermentation was completed the wine went into 33% new French Oak barrels for an eleven month elevage. It was bottled in August  2021.

WINE FACTS

Varietal: Pinot Noir – 100%
Appellation: Chehalem Mountains AVA-Willamette Valley, Oregon (This would fall into the new Laurelwood District today)
Vineyard: Nemarniki Vineyard
Clone: 777
Aging: 11 Months in new 33 % French Oak
Alcohol: 13.9%
pH: 3.68
Production: 75 Cases
Release: Sep, 2021

Laelaps Wines
306 SE Ash Street
Portland, Oregon 97214