2020 Division 'Hestia' Red (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay)

Kissed by the embers of Greek Goddess Hestia's flame, this light and spicy chillable blend of red and white grapes is perfect for delicious gatherings around your hearth or campfire. The label art was created by the ultra talented Minneapolis based Ashley Mary, capturing the eerie scene in the sky from the Oregon wildfires just before harvest 2020.

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Viticulture

The 2020 vintage in the Willamette Valley was incredibly challenging in many ways, beyond the operating impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. The growing season was nearly perfect with ample rainfall through most of June. What followed in and July was warm dry conditions, not atypical for the region. However, in early September, a strong hot and dry wind event that led to several wildfires kicking off in the nearby Western Cascade foothills. The persistent East to West winds for nearly 10 days, which are atypical, led to both high and low level smoke pinballing back and forth from the coast trade winds through the valley.

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Vinification

We never intended to make Hestia, but we are sure glad we did! Born from the grapes impacted by the wildfires in the Willamette Valley, we were faced with our greatest winemaking challenge to day – how to make a beautiful wine from a very challenging harvest. One of our Biodynamic sites we adore was unfortunately affected by the smoke and the Pinot Noir fermented from this site was clearly impacted. The wines were still lovely and interesting, but not typical of the site. When we blended Chardonnay from the same, winemaking blending magic occurred and the wine truly blossomed. We knew there was a fair degree of smoke compounds in the wine, so we fermented gently and with untoasted oak chips in the fermenter to help bind with these compounds. We also settled the wine considerably before barrel aging and added lees from 2019 for texture. The Chardonnay component was fermented in tank and racked several times to keep the lees off the wine. We blended all the components in the summer of 2021 before bottling.