Solena Cellars Featured Wine   Reg Price Our Price You Save 2008 Pinot Gris Oregon   $20 $18.99 Save $1.01 (5%) 12 bottles or more $17.50/btl Save $2.50 (13%) Free Shipping on 6 bottles or more! *Please see our shipping policy below.

Laurent Montalieu and Solena Vineyards Chiseled Like Alsace Laurent Montalieu wondered if he would ever see it. The Bordeaux enologist emigre had been making Pinot Gris in Oregon for almost 20 years, but he'd never seen a truly great dry vintage; a vintage where he could make wines akin to the ones guys like Olivier Zind-Humbrecht, Albert Boxler and Francois Barmes made in Alsace in 2001. In the early years, in Oregon, the vineyards weren't quite right, the best spots had yet to be discovered, and more recently, it was just too hot. The Pinot Gris was always good, but without the chisel of Alsace. Then came 2008, a vintage that at first appeared to be disastrous, only to work its way into a miracle. Winemaker Sam Tannahill, a baseball fan, may have said it best: "We were down five runs in the bottom of the ninth and pulled it out," he said. "Then we looked up and realized it was the seventh game of the World Series, and we had won." It seems Laurent Montalieu was pitching game 7. When he brought in the 2008 Solena Pinot Gris -- in the latter part of October! -- he ran his analysis. The numbers were stupefying. The sugars were perfect for a dry vintage. 23.5 brix. But it was the pH that was incredible, just 3.2. Finally, 20 years after Montalieu had left France, he had found Alsace in Oregon. And not any Alsace vintage -- a great, dry vintage. What happened? How do we explain this fabulously sturdy white, with the structure of excellent Chardonnay but the spice and pizazz of Pinot Gris? The skies had been gray through the first three months of the growing season. The growers were nervous, wondering if there would ever be a crop in 2008. Then the skies turned perfectly blue in September, temperatures remained moderate, and little by little all the worry was replaced by an increasing sense of the miracle to come. Laurent waited. "There was no urgency," he told us as we walked his biodynamically farmed Hyland Vineyard. "Every day we picked up a little bit of sugar. The bunches were small. By the time we picked at the END OF OCTOBER," raising his voice for emphasis, "the Pinot Gris grapes were sweet, small and so refreshing. 2008 may well go down as the vintage of my Oregon life!" Laurent has earmarked 150 cases of this brilliant white from the sensational 2008 vintage at Solena. The best Oregon Pinot Gris will be among the top American whites of 2008 -- and as always, Montalieu's Pinot Gris is one of the very best. Just $17.50/bottle (on cases). Free shipping on 6. Tasting Notes from the WineAccess Travel Log 2008 Solena Cellars Pinot Gris Oregon "Solid green apple. Hints of citrus and pink grapefruit. Rich and layered on the palate with wonderful intensity, persistence and sturdiness. Completely dry and wonderfully fresh and spicy. Long and refreshing in the finish, speaking to an unusually long life in bottle. Drink now-2014."

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