Un - 2018 - Kate Norris et Thomas Monroe

100% Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley region of Oregon. It is a blend of purchased grapes from several vine parcels cultivated organically or biodynamically. The grapes are harvested by hand by the Division Wine team, and come from the vineyards of Johan, Eola Springs, Cassin, Bjornson, Armstrong, Redford Wetle and Temperance Hill. The terroirs are therefore all very different, and include a diversity of soils – volcanic basalt, marine sediments, fragmented granite… – which accounts for the richness of this cuvée. The grapes from each parcel are fermented and matured separately, with a large proportion kept as whole bunches. The wine is matured 8 months in French oak barrels that have seen several wines, then blended and aged an additional two months in cement vats before bottling. Neither fined nor filtered, and just a microdose of sulphur.
Kate Norris and Thomas Monroe founded Division Wine in 2010 after several years spent in the regions of Beaujolais, the Loire, Burgundy and the Northern Rhône. There, between the vines rows and in the winery, they learned from natural winemakers how to “make wine” – or rather, how not to “make wine”, but rather how to let the grapes and the vintage express themselves naturally. Division Wine is an urban winery in the heart of Portland that buys grapes from environmentally conscious growers with organic or biodynamic certification. Kate and Thomas work to produce accessible and balanced wines that can be drunk in their youth, but also craft complex cuvées that deserve to be aged in the cellar, all while intervening in the winemaking process as little as possible. It’s a gamble that has paid off in spades!