Tasting Notes:
The cool nights and long summers of the Willamette Valley are perfectly suited for this French-American hybrid. This distinctive, medium bodied wine marries flavors of blueberry and black peppere with aromas of plum and violet. Lower acidity makes make it a nice match with rich pasta dishes and we love the deep earthy character with grilled or roasted meats. Maréchal Foch (MAHR-shahl FOHSH) is named after the WWI Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch. An easy way to remember how to pronounce it is that Maréchal sounds like marshal spoken with flair and Foch rhymes with brioche or gauche.
Winemaking Notes:
The fruit was gently de-stemmed by a Euro Select into 1.5-ton fermenters leaving a high whole berry content. After two days of cold soak and gentle pump-overs, inoculation was done with a variety of yeasts designed to increase complexity and mouth-feel. Fermentations were pumped over once a day with light punch downs as needed for nine to eleven days with temperatures peaking around 86°F. The wine was racked via gravity to settling tanks keeping the lots separate. The skins were shoveled into the press and pressed creating a ‘press’ settling tank. Three days later the wine was racked to barrel and inoculated for malo-lactic. After 10 months in American oak barrels the wines were racked to tank for blending. The wine was cold stabilized, filtered and bottled in September 2021.
Harvest Notes:
The 2020 growing season started with a mild winter and drier than normal spring. While there were some untimely rains in mid-June for most of the Willamette Valley our cool site meant that bloom came along almost immediately after and we were spared crop thinning by Mother Nature. The rest of the growing season was almost ideal with moderate day time temperatures and cool nights, leading to a long, slow ripening season. The fires that struck at Labor Day were nerve racking and many lost their homes making the worry about grapes seem insignificant. However, growing grapes and making wines is our livelihood and so we persevered. It again appears that our little bowl of a valley saved as we looked up to the smoky black skies and drifting ash but still had remarkably clean air in our vineyard. The lack of sun slowed ripening even more and we started harvest closer to our traditional date October 2nd. Great flavor concentration, balanced acidity and moderate alcohols means the 2020 wines will be excellent now and into the future.
Our estate vineyard, Dunn Forest, is LIVE certified sustainable and Salmon Safe. The vineyard is hand cultivated allowing us to respond to individual vine needs