Estate grown fruit has always comprised the top tier of Bethel Heights' Pinot noir program, including our signature Estate blend and two or more block-designated special bottlings. Since 1995 we have purchased small lots of Pinot noir from other vineyard sites which in past vintages were generally blended into our Eola Hills and Willamette Valley cuvees. 1998 and 1999, however, were extraordinary vintages for Oregon and all three of our purchased lots turned out to be so outstanding that we decided to bottle them as separate vineyard-designated wines: Nysa Vineyard, Lewman Vineyard and Freedom Hill Vineyard.
Nysa Vineyard is located in the Dundee Hills next to Archery Summit and Domaine Drouhin Oregon. It was planted about ten years ago in the fashionable new dense planting style of 2400 vines per acre, compared to 540 vines per acre in the older sections of Bethel Heights Vineyard. It provides Pinot noir to Ken Wright Cellars and Panther Creek as well as Bethel Heights.
Whence the name Nysa? According to Lempriere's Classical Dictionary there were a number of towns in the ancient near East named Nysa. One was sacred to the wine-friendly god Dionysius (a.k.a. Bacchus) who was named after the place (Dio+Nysa) and raised there. There was another Nysa famous for its grapevines, which grew in such an uncommon manner that if a twig was planted in the ground in the morning, it immediately produced grapes, which were fully ripe in the evening.
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1999 Nysa Vineyard "Bright and juicy, with lovely raspberry, plum and vanilla flavors on a polished frame, finishing with a long echo of the fruit." Score 90, The Wine Spectator. |
1999 PINOT NOIR * NYSA VINEYARD
Harvest date: October 14, 1999
Grapes at harvest: Brix : 23.4, pH: 3.34, TA: 7.6 gr/liter
Barrel aged 10 months in 50% new oak
Finished wine: Alcohol 13.0 %, pH: 3.62 , TA: 5.5 gr/liter
Bottled unfiltered in September 2000
344 Cases Produced
Suggested Retail $ 30
The 1999 vintage: Cold rainy weather throughout the spring and early summer left Oregon vineyards a whole month behind their normal timetable. The crop was thinned drastically in July to give it the best possible chance to ripen, then an unprecedented stretch of warm sunny weather that lasted through the end of October brought the fruit to peak maturity under optimal conditions. Outstanding vintage.
Winemaker notes: In 1999 the fruit we received from Nysa was 75% Wädenswil clone, 25% Pommard clone. All the fruit was destemmed but not crushed, then loaded into 1.5 ton open fermenters. Without yeast inoculation the must began to ferment spontaneously on the fifth day and completed primary fermentation without intervention. After primary fermentation, the new wine was pressed gently and barreled in 50% new barrels, part French oak and part Oregon white oak. The wine finished malolactic fermentation the following summer and was bottled unfiltered in September.
Tasting notes: Bright cherry fruit laced with spicy oak.