Although the website offers the heads up that Stoller Vineyards is the largest site in Oregon's Dundee Hills at 373 acres, imagining just how large is another matter. Turning onto McDougall Road is deceptive because the property can't be seen from Highway 99, and the scale is still not evident until rounding another corner and seeing the converted grain silo and beautiful house. The actual winery is a little further on, past sprawling grounds that feature shade trees, tables and chairs, and nine holes of Frisbee golf. Stoller is huge-and spectacular.
At the top of the hill is the gravity flow winery and the small, modest tasting room. A new visitors' center was under construction on our visit, scheduled to open September 2012. For now, the tasting room's brilliance is in its compactness. Everything is tastefully in its place, as elegant and refined as the wines that are produced here, belying the winery's 10,000 case production-which doesn't include the fruit they sell to other winemakers. But none of that matters if the wine isn't good, and Stoller Vineyards doesn't leave that to chance.
The flight started with the 2011 J.V. (Jeune Vignes, or young vines), a stainless steel aged Chardonnay that presents the bright, crisp fruit flavors from that style. 2011 was a cool year in Oregon and the wine shows bright apples and pears in the nose. Tart Granny Smith apples, pears and peaches abound. There's nothing like steel aging for clean, clear, focused and distinct fruit flavors.
On the other side of the Chardonnay coin is 2009 Stoller Vineyards, which is barrel fermented and oak aged. The result is a buttered toast nose-lots of butter-that carries on to the palette, along with apple pie flavors.
In a black glass tasting, the 2001 Rose might be mistaken for a Sauvignon Blanc. Such was the citrus and grapefruit in the nose. The pink grapefruit and tart strawberry flavors certainly flipped that around. Incongruous? Hardly. In two more months, all of this will be integrated nicely. We got to it a little early.
But Pinot Noir is what the Willamette Valley is all about, and if you're unfamiliar with it, the 2009 J.V. from Stoller is a great place to start. The nose is full of fresh, crushed fruit; lots of cherries, raspberries and a touch of briar. The wine is striking in its refinement, full of beautiful, silky cherry flavors, opening and unfolding in a nice long finish. This was the bargain of the day.
The rightful star of the show is the 2008 SV Estate. The nose is earthy, rich with tobacco, cherry and strawberry. There's plenty of structure to age, but it's beautifully balanced with ripe, round, defined cherries and a lingering finish. Not an unusual profile for the 2008 vintage, actually, but everything about Stoller, everything around the place, says classic. It's beautiful.
It's easy to get carried away in a gorgeous place like this, but again, it's about the wine. These guys have been at it for two decades and they've got it down. Stoller grows great wine from the ground up (yet still sells about half their crop-some of the most coveted fruit in the Willamette Valley). And there's Frisbee golf right outside the tasting room door. Honestly, could a wine lover ask for more?
