Patricia Green Cellars
The Estate Vineyard
by Jean Yates
Patricia Green Cellars' Estate VIneyard is emerging as a source for some of her best Pinot noirs. Nine years after purchasing the winery and vineyard in 2000, steady improvements and replanting have begun to show the potential of a vineyard next door to, and contiguous with, Beaux Frere's Estate vineyard.
Patricia Green Cellars, the winery, is the culmination of many years of work by Patty and business partner Jim Anderson. Founded in 2000, Patty, Jim, and investors purchased the former Autumn Wind Winery and renamed it Patricia Green Cellars. Existing buildings continue to be used for the winery, and the vineyard has been extensively reconstructed. Development of the Patricia Green Cellars Estate Vineyard into the award winning site it is today has taken tremendous amounts of work and continues, with constant changes and improvements.
Patty has divided the vineyard into blocks and develops individualized horticultural plans for each area. The Etzel Block, Estate, Reserve, Oregon, and Sign of the Times Pinot noirs, the Sauvignon Blanc, and the Chardonnays of Patricia Green Cellars are all made from sections of the Estate Vineyard.
Patty and Jim also make wine from a variety of Willamette Valley sources, encompassing the two primary soil types in the region: sedimentary and volcanic. They use multiple blocks of vines from the Eason, Balcombe, Goldschmidt, and Whistling Ridge Vineyards to bring to their wines the range of flavors from these two broad soil regions. Their wines offered a sense of purity and focus: unsullied flavors, uniformly taught structure, punchy aromatics, and luxuriant finishes.
Patricia Green Cellars' Estate Vineyard:
Emerging Star on Ribbon Ridge
The 52 acres of the Patricia Green Cellars Estate property were first planted to grapes in 1984, and many advances have been made in the understanding of the requirements of the Pinot noir vine in Oregon since then. Patricia Green brought many new viticultural practices to the Estate Vineyard, while making wine primarily from other vineyards she had been managing, for the 2000 and 2001 vintages.
By 2002, the Estate Vineyard was producing much improved fruit, and formed a pivotal part of the Patricia Green Cellars wine lineup for the vintage. 26 acres of Estate Vineyard are planted in 13 blocks, each with its own characteristics. The two "Etzel" Blocks are named for Beaux Freres' owner and winemaker, Mike Etzel, and ajoin the Beaux Freres Estate Vineyard. The blocks have improved so much in quality of fruit produced that Patty now makes an "Etzel Block” Pinot noir from the east and west Etzel blocks.
The Halejulah Block is named for "Halelujah, the Pinot gris has all been replanted to pinot noir”. It was quite a job. "Grapes of Wrath" Block has been regrafted to Pommard Pinot noir and is a tough block to manage. "Confluence" Block is so named because it sits at the confluence of the Beaux Freres, Whistling Ridge, and Patricia Green vineyards.
The "Winery" Block is used to make the Patricia Green Cellars "Oregon" Pinot noir. It sits right next to the winery building. The vines of the Estate Vineyard are planted to a 5 x 8 spacing with some 5 x 6. The trellis used to be Geneva Double Curtain but has been changed to a single wire vertical trellis. In 2001, the East and West Etzel, and Grapes of Wrath blocks were regrafted to Pommard clone Pinot noir. Throughout the Estate Vineyard, Pinot noir clones 115, Pommard, Wadenswil, and 114 are planted, with Pommard making up 70% of the vines.
today, the Estate Vineyard is broken up into 17 different blocks based upon age of vine, clonal material, elevation, aspect, etc. All the blocks have been given a name for various reasons (Pheasant, Lakeview, etc.) and this is named after the owner and winemaker, Mike Etzel, of our next door neighbor Beaux Freres. This block runs along the gully of blackberries, poison oak and a small stream that we share with them. The so-called Etzel Block (really, a tip of the hat to someone who we think of as talented, neighborly and crazed) was planted in 1986 and is the second oldest block of grapes on the property. The hill slopes toward the northwest in this block making for fruit that ripens much differently than from anywhere else in the vineyard.
