Opening a new winery at the height of a global pandemic is a labor that would make Hercules wince. Three sets of new winery owners are eager to prove they are up to the task.
Two of the wineries, J.C. Somers Vintner and Limited Addition Wines, are run by old hands starting fresh. The third, Corollary Wines, is a pair of newcomers dedicated exclusively to making sparkling wines.
J.C. Somers Vintner
Jay Somers recently parted ways with his partners at J. Christopher Wines in Newberg, the winery he started in 1995. Somers and his wife Ronda Newell-Somers have now set up shop at the Carlton Winemakers Studio with their new J.C. Somers Vintner project.
In 2019 the Somers had no clue they would eventually face a marketplace disrupted by the coronavirus.
“It’s scary out there. This spring we started losing distributors because they no longer had restaurants to sell to. I wondered if anybody would buy our wine,” Somers said.
Somers’ strategy in the face of uncertainty is to limit annual production totals to 1,000-1,500 cases and rely on “word of mouth” marketing. The first release from his new label is the perfect start.
The Somers’ first wine, the 2019 J.C. Somers Vintner Croft Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc, hit store shelves on May 1, 2020, for a suggested retail price of $28. It’s a wine Jay famous made at J. Christopher Wines.
The 2019 model is packed with aromas and flavors of lemon, lime and white grapefruit. There’s a subtle herbal note that comes across like a combination of fresh-cut grass and lemon verbena. The wine’s acidity has serious pucker power.
“Hands down, it is one of the best sauvignon blancs I’ve ever made,” Somers said.
Somers eventually will release a variety of wines, from pinot noir to viognier. Keep an eye out for them at your favorite bottle shops.
J.C. Somers Vintner, 801 N. Scott St, Carlton, jcsomers.wine or 503-502-1641.
Limited Addition Wines
Talk about a winemaking power couple. Chad Stock became a household name in the Willamette Valley when he founded Minimus Wines in Carlton. Today he is the winemaker at David Hill Vineyards & Winery in Forest Grove.
Bree Stock is one of the few winemakers in the world who holds the prestigious Master of Wine qualification. She also works as an education manager for the Oregon Wine Board.
In addition to running their Constant Crush Wine consulting company, the Stocks recently found time to start their Limited Addition Wines label. They released their first three wines in May 2020. “It was awful timing, but the only thing we could do was keep our heads down and believe in what we’re doing,” Chad Stock said.
Stock says they have been lucky so far as direct-to-consumer sales have helped offset the loss of restaurant and retail accounts.
“Our biggest adjustment was adding an e-commerce function to our website to accommodate the demand,” Stock said.
Two of the Limited Addition wines, a chenin blanc and a pinot noir-pinot gris blend, have sold out. The third wine, a 2019 vintage rosé made with grenache fruit from Eola Springs Vineyard, is still available. It is the color of ripe rose hips, and its raspberry, mint, orange peel and raspberry scents make a potent summertime perfume. The wine’s flavors of raspberry sorbet, thyme and bitters are equally enticing. At a suggested retail price of $26, this rosé is worth every penny.
Limited Addition Wines, limitedadditionwines.com.
Corollary Wines
Jeanne Feldkamp and Dan Diephouse of Corollary Wines moved to Portland from San Francisco in 2017 for one reason: to make the best méthode champenoise sparkling wines possible.
This spring Feldkamp and Diephouse were ready to release the four 2017 vintage sparkling wines they made at Winter’s Hill Estate in Dayton. The release party was scheduled for March 25 at Portland’s Ambonnay Champagne Bar. The coronavirus changed all that.
Feldkamp and Diephouse pulled the plug on the party and started a wine club instead. In what can only be described as “house-by-house guerilla marketing,” the couple got a great response to their offer of free home delivery from Salem to Portland. “People are always so happy to see me when I show up on their doorstep,” Feldkamp said.
My personal favorite is the 2017Cuvée One Brut at a suggested retail price of $38. It smells like lemon zest and cinnamon spice sprinkled on a slice of fresh-baked bread. Flavors like lemon, lime, chamomile and quinine water zip along on a wave of steely acidity. It’s one of the best Oregon sparkling wines I’ve had in a very long time.
Corollary Wines, corollarywines.com or 503-389-5852.
-- Michael Alberty writes about wine for The Oregonian/OregonLive. He can be reached at malberty0@gmail.com. To read more of his coverage, go to oregonlive.com/wine.
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August 09, 2020
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