2018 Johan Vineyards ‘Farmlands’ Pinot Noir

Region: Willamette Valley < Oregon

Grapes: Pinot Noir

Vineyard/Cellar Stats: Demeter certified biodynamic farming; basalt soils with Missoula flood deposits as topsoil; some whole cluster but mostly destemmed; fermented and aged in used barrel; bottled unfined/unfiltered with a very small (25ppm) addition of So2 8 weeks before bottling; 13.2% ABV

Winemaker: Dan Rinke

This is certified biodynamic wine from a gorgeous, meticulously farmed vineyard – a great intro to Oregon pinot and no-added-sulfur wine! Willamette Valley’s Johan Vineyards is one of the earliest and most respected biodynamic growers in the region, having started conversion in 2007 -- Dan Rinke’s first order of business when he came on as winemaker. Dan had been a firm believer in biodynamics since the 90’s, and the owners of Johan were game.  Biodynamic farming has a bunch of different components, but for them, it boils down to viewing the vineyard as a single organism and placing equal focus on every aspect of the process, from the vines themselves all the way down to the soil and its microbial ecology. They sell most of their fruit to local wineries, but make a small amount of their own, under both the Johan Vineyards label and the Farmlands label (all from fruit from the home vineyard, not purchased fruit as with many second labels). Dan says, “we made Farmlands to emphasize the fact that we are farmers first. I farm 76 acres of grapes at Johan and we sell 60% of the fruit to 22 different wineries.”

This wine is bright, tart and juicy, like a romp in a raspberry forest followed by a quick roll on the forest floor.  Best deal on certified biodynamic Pinot around!