Bill
and Cathy Stoller are the current owners of this estate, which
Bill’s father and uncle ran as a turkey farm until the late 1980s.
The entire property is 375 acres.
In
1993 Bill and Cathy brought the property from a cousin, and then in
1995 the first vines were planted here: 10 acres of Pinot Noir and
10 of Chardonnay. Currently, there are 175 acres under vine, but
just 40 acres are producing at the moment. 80% is Pinot Noir, but
there’s also Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Gris, as well as a
tiny bit of Syrah and Tempranillo. By Oregon standards, this is
quite a warm site.
Bill
and Cathy are also co-owners of Chehalem, and Chehalem gets about
half of the fruit from this estate. In all, almost 80% of the fruit
from Stoller vineyard is sold. Other wineries buying fruit include
Argyle, Adelsheim and Scott Paul. Some bottle Pinot with the Stoller
Vineyard designation, others don’t.
Cellar room manager
Mich Nelson and winemaker Melissa Burr
The
impressive winery was completed in 2005, and it’s the first and
(currently) only LEED certified winery in the region. Solar panels
provide 46 kw/h of power, which over the year contributes about half
the total energy needs of the winery. This is expensive to install,
despite the existence of some tax breaks.
The
Stoller wine label first emerged in 2001 when 600 cases of Pinot
Noir were made. Melissa Burr, the current winemaker, who showed me
around, started here in 2003 and helped design the winery. It’s
still a boutique operation, making around 15 000 cases a year
maximum.
While
I was visiting, Melissa was getting excited about a new piece of
technology: a cross-flow filtration machine that they were trying.
This is a really effective and non-brutal way of filtering wine: we
compared two samples, before and after, of a Pinot Noir that had
just been treated.
JV Pinot, after and before going
through the cross-flow filter
'JV'
wines are those made from younger vines.
Stoller
JV Rosé 2007 Dundee Hills Destemmed and soaked for a couple of days, with some whole
clusters added at pressing. Nice sweet rounded fruit with a smooth
texture and some richness. Lively with soft, sweet, creamy
strawberry fruit. 88/100
Stoller
JV Chardonnay 2007 Dundee Hills Bright and fruity with nice crispness and some grapefruit notes.
Good presence on the fresh palate with with a bit of nuttiness and
some herby notes. Good acid. 88/100
Stoller
SV Chardonnay 2006 Dundee Hills Very rich, toasty, nutty nose with intense fruit. Broad,
aromatic and full-on. The palate shows nice fruit focus with a
creamy, toasty character. Very attractive. 90/100
Stoller
JV Pinot Noir 2006 Dundee Hills Lovely bright sweet cherry fruit here: it has lovely purity and
brightness. Fresh and a bit herby with sweet fruit. Real focus.
90/100
Stoller
SV Pinot Noir 2006 Dundee Hills Beautifully perfumed with lovely red fruit and cherry character
supported by some new oak. Beautifully integrated palate with nice
purity of fruit. Deliciously bright with some spicy depth.
Expressive. 92/100
Stoller
Cathy’s Reserve 2004 Dundee Hills A barrel selection of three of the best barrels that really
stood out. All Wadenswil clone. Lovely bright high-toned aromatics
with some herby complexity. The palate is dense with lovely red
berry fruit and some earthiness. Nicely savoury and dense but still
quite complex and elegant. 93/100