100% Wädenswil from vines planted in 1983. A barrel selection. Gold medal and 92 points.

This is the bottle that tells the whole story of the estate. The Old Vines label showcases the Wädenswil clone from the original saved block, a tribute to the Chapels' Swiss connection, and it's made as a barrel selection of the best barrels of 100% Wädenswil clone planted in 1983.

The vines came within a season of being lost. Cultivation of the original vineyard at the foot of Cardwell Hill began in 1983, with roughly one third of the 20 acre site planted to Pinot Noir Wädenswil clone and the rest to white varieties. By the time Dan and Nancy Chapel bought the property in January 2000, it was an abandoned vineyard in Philomath, Oregon, 12 miles west of Corvallis in the shadow of Mary's Peak. Neither of them had any farming experience, so they hired a vineyard manager and began a major recovery effort, salvaging the posts and wire and saving that single block of vines. Remarkably, it contained Wädenswil, a Swiss clone of Pinot Noir.

The clone itself is a piece of Oregon history: developed by the Swiss at the Federal Research Institute in Wädenswil near Zurich, brought to UC Davis by Dr. Harold Olmo, and introduced to Oregon by David Lett in the 1960s, where it remains a key component in the region's wines. The Chapels eventually closed the circle, standing under the Wädenswil banner at the village wharf in 2023 to open a bottle of their Old Vines and drink Oregon grown Wädenswil in its Swiss homeland.

Why Wädenswil matters here

Everything else the estate grows gets blended. This doesn't. Where the standard bottling blends four clones (Pommard, Wädenswil, Dijon 115 and Dijon 777, each separately managed, then blended to build complexity), the Old Vines isolates the one clone that defines the property. Wädenswil is the high toned, perfumed, red fruited end of the Pinot spectrum: less plush than Pommard, more floral and nervy, and it ages beautifully.

Tasting notes, 2018 at eight years

• Colour: medium garnet, beginning to show brick at the rim
• Nose: dried red cherry, cranberry, rose petal and sandalwood, with forest floor and loamy earth from bottle age
• Palate: medium bodied and silky, red fruited and savory, with the Wädenswil lift and fine grained tannin now fully resolved
• Finish: long, earthy, gently spiced. Mature Oregon Pinot in the best sense.
• Drink: in its sweet spot now through roughly 2030
• Serve: 58 to 62°F in a large bowled Burgundy glass that lets the aromatics bloom. Decant 30 minutes.

Awards

92 points and a GOLD medal at the 2024 San Francisco International Wine Competition.

Not an outlier for this address, either. Cardwell Hill was named 2021 Oregon Winery of the Year, and the house style has drawn Wine Spectator scores from 89 to 93 across vintages, plus a Wine Spectator Top 100 listing for the 2006 Estate Pinot Noir.

Farming and cellar

• Dry farmed and certified sustainable by both Salmon Safe and LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology)
• Gravity flow, start to finish, in a state of the art gravity flow winery completed in 2003, with fruit processed within two hours of picking
• Traditional, hands on reds: fermentation in 2.5 ton open top stainless steel tanks, cold soaks, manual punch downs, with free run and press wine flowing by gravity to the barrel room
• French oak, with the house regime running roughly 25% new, 50% one and two year old, and 25% neutral barrels

Genuinely small

A boutique, family owned winery producing just over 5,000 cases per year in total, and the Old Vines is a barrel selection off a single 1983 block within that. A comparable vintage of this cuvée ran 261 cases.

Perfect with

Duck breast with cherry, roast chicken, mushroom risotto, salmon, lamb loin, truffled pasta, aged Gruyère, and, fittingly, raclette.

The details