2018 Argyle Winery Willamette Valley Blanc De Noirs Willamette Valley 750 ml

When Rollin Soles founded Argyle in Dundee in 1987, he was taking an unspeakable risk. The state’s Pinot Noir industry was barely 22 years old. Beaux-Frères and Shea Vineyard had not been planted yet. To place all his chips on sparkling wine back then was nothing short of…well, nuts.

Traditional method sparkling wine—the way they make it in Champagne—is extraordinarily labor-intensive, capital-intensive, and just plain risky to make. To make great bubbles, you can’t make any errors, and you’ve got to wait three years or more for the yeast to work its magic. All the dosing, aging, riddling, and disgorging requires so much more work than still wines. It’s a labor of love, not a business model.

But Soles saw then what we all know now: Oregon’s Willamette Valley has the perfect climate for sparkling wine, because flavor ripeness and sugar ripeness occur with remarkable synchronicity. And that’s exactly what happens at Spirit Hill Vineyard, named for an old Pioneer Cemetery in the Eola-Amity Hills. 

In 2018, winemaker Nate Klostermann crafted this 80% Pinot Noir, 20% Pinot Meunier bubbly from those vines. The base wine was so rich and heady, only a 4 g/l dosage was needed, keeping the wine rich but beautifully focused. 

If you love Champagne and want to be able to drink it any night of the week, treat yourself to at least a case of this complex, generous Blanc de Noirs. Savor a glass, and toast Rollin Soles for taking that leap all those years ago.