Lagana Cellars

Washington

Buy Direct

Breezy Slope Vineyard Pinot Noir

Walla Walla Valley

$40 USD

Release Price

2015-2030

Drink Window

13.53%

ABV

3.47

pH

6.7

TA

RS

Harvest

100% Pinot Noir, Breezy Slope Vineyard, clones 114 and 115.
10% New French oak, aged in 2nd fill barrels for 18 months.

Bottling

First thought: Walla Walla Pinot Noir? This wine is distinctly Walla Walla; not like Willamette or Sonoma. A light ruby to brick color, this wine has aromas of raspberry, cranberry, tobacco, and cola. Those aromas lead into bing cherry, cranberry, cremini mushroom, and tobacco on the palate. The French oak sits in the background adding structure to the bright acidity backbone. Drink now through 2025.

Winemaking

For this wine, I wanted to create a wine that showed off what Walla Walla can do with Pinot Noir. Compared to Willamette Valley, we can get the fruit riper in terms of sugar and flavor and darker in color due to our greater sunlight. I also didn’t want to hit the wine with too much new oak so that the natural flavors and essence of the wine shine instead of being drowned out by oak flavors. This wine came in quite early for a red, in the middle of September instead of the typical October time frame. It proved to be ripe enough, so I chose to pick it. After the fruit was picked, it was destemmed into one ton plastic fermenters with the addition of enzymes that increase color and aroma. After a day of soaking on the skins, I added 3001 yeast and malolactic bacteria on day three to ferment both sugar and malic acid at the same time. The wine fermented for 11 days before being pressed to tank. Primary and secondary fermentation completed at the same time, so SO2 was added to protect from oxidation and microbiological spoilage. It sat for three weeks in tank before being racked into barrels. The wine was bottled on March 30th, 2015 after crossflow filtration. The wine was racked three times and saw 10% new French oak, i.e. 2nd fill French oak barrels for 18 months.

Jason Fox
Have you ever had that pivotal Wine Moment in your life? For Lagana Cellars founder and owner Jason Fox, it was the 2005 Chateau La Croix de Gay Pomerol, and with all due respect to the film Sideways, that f’ing Merlot was amazing! It had the characteristics of a truly balanced wine where terroir and process mattered: pure tannin structure, acidity, fruit and earthiness. At that moment, Jason was hooked, and not long afterwards, moved to Walla Walla to study winemaking.

It was at Walla Walla Community College’s Enology and Viticulture program that he discovered his passion for making whites – crisp, clean wines with little or no oak that are pure expressions of the grape, terroir and vintage. No two wines are alike across vintages and vineyards, which is what makes them fun to taste as well as tell their story.

In 2012, Jason interned at one of valley’s oldest and most respected wineries, Walla Walla Vintners. Working with Gordy Venneri and Myles Anderson’s winemaking team, he learned to love the art of making red wines that are complex and interesting with an elegant interplay of tannin and fruit. His goal with reds is to make aromatic and luscious wines with less oak and more varietal character.
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