Limited Addition "Chehalem Mountain" Grüner Veltliner, Willamette Valley, Oregon 2022

FROM LIMITED ADDITION:

THE WINE: Gruner Veltliner was first planted in Oregon and, the Willamette Valley, in the early 1980s by a retired Army surgeon who had spent time in Austria and Germany during his service. Falling in love with the variety he smuggled it back into the US on his return and planted at his retirement property in the South Salem hills. Over the past decade we have worked with every planting of the variety in the Willamette Valley and Bree has worked with the variety in both Austria and Australia, we find it to be a compelling variety that has a multitude of expressions depending on where it is planted and when you decide to harvest and handle it in the cellar. This selection of Gruner Veltliner is planted at the oldest and first vineyard to be planted in the Chehalem Mountains AVA, it is grafted onto pinot noir roots (pinot didn’t perform well next to the large oak forest), and it is Biodynamically farmed by the Gross family who are the current custodians of this historic site. The gloriously warm and long 2022 October gave us an ideal vintage to approach the fruit yet again with a desire to express the purity of the ripe, smarag level, fruit, and the vineyard. While working in Austria I realized that modern winemaking universities have taught their enology grads to be overly precious with white wines (gentle pressing, fining enzymes) to minimize the pickup of phenolics/tannins, however, some white varieties, and Gruner Veltliner especially, holds an immense amount of flavor in its skin and that when we it is direct press quickly it loses much of Gruner-ness, for this reason we foot tread the fruit for at least 24 hours to allow the cold maceration to draw out the varieties true to character. The wine has crisp vivid mineral acidity with golden apples, lemon balm and just a faint hint of arugula spice, left on its lees for 9 months and full malolactic fermentation completed it has just a dash of creamy almond note and voluptuous key lime pie flavor in the mid-palate that brings depth to the energetic fruit and acid.

THE PRODUCER: Limited Addition wines was born out of the conviction that Oregon’s Willamette Valley was an exceptional winegrowing region capable of growing many high-quality global grape varieties not yet planted, or even imagined here... yet.

Varieties that would suit the regions changing climate and be capable of making naturally farmed, naturally made wines, expanding the growing season, varietal diversity and build the regions resilience to climate change.

We believe that by changing the landscape of vineyards throughout the valley, every person involved in the wine industry has an opportunity for more- from the growers to the wineries theselves.