Maresh Vineyard - 2016 - Kelley Fox

100% Pinot Noir from old vines cultivated biodynamically and planted in 1970 at the Maresh vineyard in the Dundee Hills appellation. The grapes were harvested by hand on dates chosen in accordance with the biodynamic calendar. The vinification is about artisan winemaking without additives: maceration of whole grape bunches, without pumping over, and only a few punch downs which Kelley carries out using his feet alone. Only the free-run wine is used in this cuvée. The remaining must is then pressed in a pneumatic press to complete the blends of the estate’s other wines. Maturation is done for 10 months in barrels that have seen several wines, with the barrels topped up every week, and the wine bottled in accordance with the lunar cycle. Neither fined nor filtered, the wine receives just a minimal dose of sulphites to protect them.
Kelley Fox founded her eponymous estate with the help of her father Gus Stearns in 2007. A lover of Oregon and the Willamette Valley, where she lived for more than 28 years, Kelley Fox has a wealth of practical experience in both viticulture and oenology. A graduate in psychology and biology from the University of Texas, she obtained her master's degree in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of Oregon. She was accepted into a PhD programme, but her interest in wine was so strong that she decided to try to learn winemaking on the job for a while, and was soon taken under the wings of some of the region's most renowned winemakers. From that point on it was no turning back for the savant. Since 2000, Kelley has been working exclusively as a winemaker in Oregon, where she has cultivated an outsized passion for Pinot Noir. It’s a passion you can truly sense, both in the meticulous care she lavishes on each vine parcel and each barrel, and in the emotions we feel in tasting every one of her cuvées. They are wines that reflect their vintage and their terroir in the most beautiful way, with precision, subtlety and elegance – she's a winemaker who fashions lace from grapes.