L etters

The 2022 Vintage

We moved from our temporary home in Northeast Portland to Cancilla Vineyard during the first week of April 2022. Under our direction, the vines had been pruned and tied and they, like us, anxiously awaited the oncoming growing season, our first on the property. Relatively new to Oregon, we were operating under the anecdotal assumption of snow being a rarity in the northern Willamette Valley. More than 10 inches fell on April 11th, a winters welcome in early spring. Walking the property that day was beautiful; everything quiet, blanketed in white. As we slowly trekked through the powder up into the Vineyard, we saw a cherry tree had given way to the weight of its new winter coat, coming to rest on the deer fence bordering block 1, its branches outstretched onto the first few rows of vines. We headed back down to the barn to retrieve the pole saw to get to work.

A pole saw was the default tool of choice given we did not have a chainsaw at the time. This would be the first in a seemingly never-ending acquisition of tools in response to new and varied challenges that constantly emerge on the farm. After a few tedious hours, the branches were trimmed and removed from the vines, and we collapsed into the powdery bed of snow to rest, just as another round of snow began to fall.

Snow is not bad for the vines, particularly in the winter and early spring before budbreak. The cold of the snow helps control populations of unwanted, overwintering pests and, as it melts, helps the winter soil absorb the water more slowly. The vigneron – absent the occasion where a cherry tree falls onto the vines – is free to enjoy the snow as we may have once done so after finding out school was cancelled, layering up to indulge in its excitement and wonder before retiring indoors for the warmth of a cup of hot chocolate. Well, with one key difference - the increased likelihood of that cup of hot chocolate now containing a splash or two of local Killdeer espresso liquor or Italian amaretto. We settled inside and enjoyed the dance of lights on the snowfall outside as the sun set.

Whereas snow is not an unwelcome site in the vineyard, a hard frost at the wrong time is. The bucolic snowfall to begin the week gave way to declining temperatures throughout the rest of it, ultimately resulting in multiple worrying nights about the potential impacts of the cold on that year’s crop. While vines in their dormant state are particularly resistant to colder temperatures, as they emerge from their dormancy they become increasingly vulnerable to frost damage. Early signs that the vines are readying for another year’s cycle include sap beginning to flow from pruning wounds and buds beginning to show on the canes of the vine - both were happening out in the vineyard as the frosts hit. While we felt fortunate that we were still pre-bud “break” – meaning the first, delicate, green growth begins to burst out of the individual buds, destined to become that year’s fruit – frost can also damage the buds themselves, impacting that season’s yields months down the road.

Cancilla Vineyard is a cooler site than many across the Valley, thus bud break often happens a few weeks later than most; the cooler site bringing both the increased likelihood of temperatures dropping to dangerous levels while also keeping the vines dormant for just a little bit longer to hopefully make it to the point at which frost is no longer a threat. To further help mitigate the impact of a frost event, Cancilla Vineyard was carefully laid out on the property to ensure that cold air “flows” away from the vines, in much the same way the rivers and streams that vein the Coast Range above where our vineyard sits flow down from the peaks into the valleys, collecting in pockets where the slopes become shallower. This same effect occurs within the vineyard, pushing colder air that could potentially damage the vines cycle down the slopes of the vineyard – you’ll often see frost in flatter areas of grasses below the vineyard before you’ll see the same effects amongst the vines that sit above.

The frosts in early April certainly damaged spirits throughout the Valley that spring, particularly for grape farmers. The heaviness of the potential for low or no yields was ever present throughout conversations, and we all prepared for the worst. Conventional wisdom was that the impact was certainly going to be negative, with the big question being, how drastic it would be. At some level, all we could do was wait – wait for bud break, for flowering, for fruit set. Only then would we begin to understand the full impact of not only the frost on that year’s crop, but any of the other threats to the vines that can occur during these phases. And even if we avoided any additional threats – the re-emergence of cold weather or events such as hail, rain, or heavy winds during flowering and fruit set – the collective mindset was that some damage had already been done.

We luckily made it through the rest of these vine cycles unscathed – the weather eventually warming and beautifully calm and dry conditions throughout flowering and fruit set. But the frost of early April still proverbially hung in the air, cooling the usual excitement that comes during the early summer. What emerged from the worry was a testament to how incredibly resilient and misunderstood the grape vine can be; how our increasingly reductive understanding of these plants is still not predictive. The vines thrived, yielding crops that many noted to be amongst their highest in years. Grape vines are survivors and, despite some challenging conditions in the early parts of the growing season, were determined to bear fruit and propagate.

But despite the vine’s resilience in the face of the frost damage, grape farmers are never out of the woods. The frosts did cause an unusually slow and late early-stage development in the vines, likely delaying potential harvest dates into mid-October and beyond, the delay likely bringing with it the convergence of the Oregon rainy season. Rain around harvest has the potential for a number of negative outcomes, particularly for the thin-skinned pinot noir grape. Worry simply moved on from the potential impact of the frosts to the potential impact of the rains.

As the threat of harvest rains still lingered in the distance, we moved on from a beautiful, robust fruit set to focusing on berry ripening and maturity throughout the summer. The summer of 2022, much like the previous summer in the PNW, brought with it the ominous terms of “heat domes”, “droughts”, and “fires”. The long summer days were consistently hot and warm, bathing the grapes constantly in sunlight. We intentionally let the vines shoots grow long that summer and later delayed pulling leaves, all in an attempt to provide the grapes with some daytime reprieve from the sun. In addition to the heat, Cancilla Vineyard saw its last measurable rainfall in late May of that year, with the rain not returning until mid-October. A long, hot, dry, summer indeed.

And like most things with farming grapes, everything is a tradeoff, a negotiation (however one sided) with nature. While little to no rain helps prevent powdery mildew and other disease pressures, it can simultaneously deprive the vines of the critical nutrients and energy that comes with occasional rainfall. The same heat and sunlight that is critical to ripen grapes effectively can conversely cause vines to shut down and even burn the skins of the grapes when excessive. Heat and drought combined can cause a lot of stress to a vine, bringing with it certain risks while also concentrating flavors and power. While the relatively older vines of Cancilla Vineyard – planted between 1999 and 2003 – have widespread, developed root systems that mine down deep below the earth to find water, the hot, dry weather of 2022 began to take a toll, lasting all the way to harvest.

We picked the grapes in mid-October, the day before the first of the rain came. Given the totality of that season’s conditions – frosts, heat spikes, droughts – the grapes made their way into the winery with small, thick-skinned berries, completely free of disease, and intensely concentrated. A late heat spike in mid-October caused sugars within the grapes to spike right before harvest, further increasing potential alcohol and power.

Our job in the winery is to tell the story of the vintage as transparently as possible; to listen, learn, and lean into what mother nature has provided for us that year. In 2022, that meant embracing depth and power, while highlighting the finesse in the wines as much as they allowed to provide balance. The resulting wines are beautifully seductive and structured. Patience was necessary, and the wines aged in neutral oak barrels for almost 16 months before spending almost another year in bottle, harmonizing and softening as they aged.

We could easily have imposed our will in the winery in an attempt to craft wines that are consistently similar year-over-over, vintage-over-vintage. We could have sacrificed singularity and complexity in the name of consistency by adding and subtracting things until we reached the right “recipe”. But that was not and never will be our goal. As we continue to learn about this site and embrace different winemaking techniques, we’ll continue to make small adjustments to try and craft the best possible wines that we can each year for you. Honest, transparent wines that try to distill the beauty of the growing season – both the good and the bad – into the bottle that reaches your table. For 2022, that meant embracing and harnessing the power of the vintage; we could not be prouder of how these distinct wines turned out, and we hope you enjoy them as well. Below we’ve provided additional information on each of the three wines in this release.

The 2022 Cancilla Vineyard Pinot Noir “Site”

The first wine is the 2022 Cancilla Vineyard “Site” Pinot Noir. Site is our ode to Cancilla Vineyard, which serves as our estate vineyard as well as our home. Site is a field blend consisting of fruit from each block in our estate vineyard – 10 pinot noir blocks and 1 chardonnay block – all co-fermented together, with each block representing in the wine it’s relative size to the vineyard as a whole. The only wine that we don’t blind blend, Site is intended to represent an unadulterated view of place and vintage, eventually creating a retrospective that we can revisit to tell the story of each year through this particular wine.

The grapes that make up our 2022 “Site” were harvested across two days, on October 14th and 19th, with fruit from the later pick being added to the existing fermenters to create a true vineyard composite co-ferment – all six pinot noir clones across ten vineyard blocks and both chardonnay clones from our single chardonnay block, together. Both pick days were unseasonably warm and dry, continuing the drought-like conditions that had persisted since late-May. The continued lack of water and unrelenting warmth resulted in berries that were extremely small and concentrated, with sugars beginning to climb quickly in the 5 days between the two picks. After an assessment of the phenolic ripeness of the stems, we added up to 50% whole clusters to certain fermenters, with the final blending being about 25% whole cluster. Site is a wine that we always envision containing a generous amount of whole cluster, as the vintage allows, stemming from the idea that the stems are an extension of the vines themselves, and thus provide an additional lens into this specific place by way of the wines. Following primary fermentation in open-top macrobins, the newly fermented wines were pressed off the day after Halloween, before spending 15 months in neutral French oak barrels. Following bottling, each bottle was hand-waxed prior to release.

Like all of our 2022 Cancilla Vineyard wines, the 2022 Cancilla Vineyard “Site” is marked by the powerful potential of our vineyard’s marine sedimentary soil when combined with the hot, dry summer of 2022. The wine shows aromas of both fresh and stewed red fruits – cranberries, wild cherries, accentuated by fresh blood orange and citrus character, all with a distinct spice characteristic that has come to be present in all wines that come from Cancilla Vineyard. Those same flavors follow through to the palate, along with a hint of summer blueberries on the mid palate and finishing with a citrusy brightness and lift from the inclusion of the chardonnay. The body is supple with a well-integrated but present tannic structure that lasts through the extended finish.

The 2022 Cancilla Vineyard Pinot Noir “Lichen”

Unlike Site, the rest of our wines are blind blended. We do this in an attempt to remove any preconceived notions that we develop about each block, clone, and barrel of wine. So much time is spent in the quiet of the cellar with the wines – smelling, tasting, listening – that it is natural to begin to develop varied thoughts about each barrel and how it may fit either alone or part of a larger whole. In the moment, this is done as part of a continual assessment of the wine and it’s needs, influencing different decisions we make throughout processing, fermentation, and elevage. But it can make honest evaluation of the wines when it comes time to put together final blends difficult, thus by blind blending it helps evaluate the wines with more objective clarity.

Lichen is born from this blind blending process and is our first single vineyard, single varietal wine from Cancilla Vineyard.

Similar to Site, the grapes for Lichen were picked across October 14th and 19th, with some destined for single-clone fermentations and others a part of clonal blends selected based on a number of factors, including the quantity of each block and clone that we bring is as well as flavors we are tasting out in vineyard before harvest. Variations of whole cluster are determined by fermenter, with the decisions being made based on wine chemistry and flavors by chewing both the stems and seeds. The continued lack of water and unrelenting warmth of the 2022 growing season resulted in berries that were extremely small and concentrated, with sugars beginning to climb in the 5 days between picks. Following fermentation in open-top macrobins, the newly fermented wines were pressed off the day after Halloween, before spending 15 months in neutral French oak barrels. Those barrels were then tasted and blended blind to determine the final blend for “Lichen”.

Like all of our 2022 Cancilla Vineyard wines, the 2022 Cancilla Vineyard “Lichen” is marked by the powerful potential of our vineyard’s marine sedimentary soil when combined with the hot, dry summer of 2022. Lichen is decidedly red fruited on the nose, mixing with an undertone of wet forest floor and spice, nodding to Oregon classics while having a distinct character all its own. The palate shows similar red fruit, leaning towards cranberries and maraschino cherries (the good ones from the ceramic jars) and a cinnamon and cardamom spice that adds interest, with just a touch of mushroom-y funk that will likely continue to present itself as the wine ages. The body of the wine is deep and seductive, with a round body and robust tannins, all accentuated by a backbone of acidity. The fruit and acid linger, reverberating on the cheeks well after completion of a sip, providing for a long finish that invites you in for more.

The 2022 Cancilla Vineyard Chardonnay

We consider white winemaking a discipline all its own. While the process of creating red wine offers opportunities to create shadows and hide flaws, white wines are transparent in flavor much the same way the wines sit transparently in the glass; decisions get accentuated, mistakes brought to light. We’ve always had a deep respect for friends and inspirers who’ve mastered the craft of creating magical white wines, especially those who honor tradition yet refuse to be bound by it. Our 2022 Cancilla Vineyard chardonnay tries to emulate the spirit and techniques of those winemakers, while listening to the grapes that come in and creating a distinct wine representative of time and place.

The 2022 chardonnay grapes arrived at the winery in beautiful condition, ripe and concentrated as was typical of all our 2022 fruit. We foot tread the grapes and let the newly released juice macerate on the skins for 24 hours, a process intended to pull out both flavor and phenolics from the grape skins. After 24 hours, the chardonnay grapes were pressed, removing the rest of the juice from the skins. A majority of the juice was then put into a neutral French oak barrel, with the rest put into a stainless steel tank, the goal to capture both elements of oxidative and reductive winemaking techniques to paint with at the blending table. Oxidative winemaking often results in wines with increased body and texture, with notes of toasted nuts; reductive winemaking accentuates fruit and linear qualities. Primary fermentation was long and slow, creeping throughout the winter before finishing when temperatures eventually warmed the following spring, completed malolactic conversion – the conversion of sharp, malic acids (common in green apples) to softer, lactic acids (common in milk). The wines in both barrel and tank remained in contact with the lees – lees being the solids that precipitate out of the wine and fall to the bottom of the fermentation and/or aging vessel – for the balance of elevage, which occurred over 15 months. Inspired by some of our favorite white wines of the Jura region in France, we allowed the wine periods of extended contact with oxygen, further accentuating a distinct nuttiness in the wines. The wines spent another year in bottle before this release, with the final blend being composed of 75% of the barrel-fermented and aged wine, with 25% of the steel-fermented chardonnay.

The 2022 Cancilla Vineyard Chardonnay has distinct, rich tropical notes on the nose, with green mango and papaya balanced against toasted almond skin and preserved lemon peel/fresh lemon pith. The palate is relatively full bodied, with notes on the palate similar to the nose, calling back to tropical fruits, toasted nuts, and preserved lemon peel. The finish of the wine remains robust, with a salted almond character that makes this singular wine both food friendly as it is to enjoy on its own, particularly on a fall or winter day.

Only 20 cases of the 2022 Cancilla Vineyard Chardonnay were produced, with purchases limited to two bottles per customer; shipping may be limited to certain states, so please reach out directly if you experience any issues or have any questions.

Come See Us

As noted in the pre-release letter, we’re excited to offer several distinct options for you to enjoy Throughline Wines either in-person or virtually. Given the small quantities of wine we produce, reservations will be limited and by appointment only. All tastings will include a selection of Throughline Wines alongside a few inspirational wines from winemakers across the world, in addition to locally produced bites (think breads and pastries, cheeses and chocolates). Please use the button below to visit the website for more information and, as always, please don’t hesitate to reach out directly with any questions. We look forward to welcoming you, whether near or far, to experience these wines and this place with us.

Final Thoughts

As we reflect back not only on the 2022 growing season, but also our first wine release almost a year ago, we are overcome with emotion at the support we’ve received both through so many of you who have been generous enough to purchase wine, as well as through those who have reached out to share kind words of support or photos of you enjoying the wines. We shed a lot of tears over the past year, but few were more special than those happy tears that involuntarily flowed as we packed up shipments, wrote cards, or read your texts and photos. The amount of heart and effort we put into this can at times be overwhelming, and it’s those special moments that truly validate the journey we’re on. Thank you.

We hope that you enjoy these latest wines and wish you a happy holidays and new year.

AJ and Katie