The Pursuit of a Dream
Seven of Hearts features wines from distinct appellations within Oregon's Willamette Valley and neighboring regions, including specific vineyards and portions of vineyards that show unique characteristics. Using traditional winemaking methods, our goal is small production wines of great purity, complexity, and elegance.
Tasting at Grand Vines, Salem, Wednesday, February 10
Join us at Grand Vines in Salem on Wenesday, February 10, when we will be the featured winery, pouring several of our Seven of Hearts and Luminous Hills wines. Gand Vines is Salem's First Wine Bar, Wine Shop, Bistro and Chocolate Shop All in One.
Location
Corner of High & Court
195 High St NE
Salem, OR 97301
Seven of Hearts Tasting Room in Carlton
217 West Main Street, Carlton (Get Directions)
Friday & Saturday,
1pm - 6pm
Sunday, Noon - 5pm
Custom
wine-tasting chocolates from Honest
Chocolates
For private tastings and special appointments, call 971-241-6548
 
Seven of Hearts Tasting Room & Honest Chocolates Kitchen
Now Pouring:
2008 Chardonnay Yamhill-Carlton Elvenglade Vineyard
2008 Chatte d'Avignon Viognier & Roussanne
2008 Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills
2008 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley
2008 Luminous Hills Estate Grown Pinot Noir Yamhill-Carlton
2008 Luminous HIlls LUX
(paired with raspberry-pinot ganache)
2007 Pinot Noir The Cost Vineyard (paired with cranberry-pinot ganache)
Seven of Hearts Wine Club
 Designed for the loyal followers of our wines, the Seven of Hearts Wine Club was created as a way to obtain our limited production wines at significant discounts, as well as other club benefits. New Club members will receive our fall shipment in November, including a selection of our new releases from the 2008 vintage.
From the Heart
Those of us who make Pinot noir tend to be pretty passionate about this grape, the wines, and the issues of style for this noble variety. The passion leaks out into other things, which I'll occasionally touch on here.
1/5/10 - Reflecting on Four Distinct Vintages
This is a continuation of some of the thoughts while assessing the 2009 vintage. Looking back on the past four vintages in Oregon, it's remarkable how truly distinct each one them has been. Of course, vintages are like fingerprints, and no two will be exactly alike, but there are fundamental and profound distinctions amongst the last four. 2006 was a warmer vintage, but fairly even-keeled -- no real extremes, with a very predictable climax, creating an almost California-like character to the wines. 2007 was a cooler year with an extended rainy finish, enabling what truly was a Burgundian vintage with structured, elegant wines. 2008, cool again, but this time with an exceptional extended finish to the year, supplying the material for a rare vintage. And then we have 2009, certainly the most erratic season of the group, with heat spikes and cool pockets, intermixed with rain and high humidity.
Another remarkable thing about the vintages, as a collection, is what they tell us about the potential they create for wines. Certainly there is no correlation between easy and good or difficult and bad. As we mused before, perhaps the most profound impact a winemaker can have on his or her wines is when making the decision to pick. 2006 was an easy year providing easy guidance on when to pick the grapes, in some fashion forcing our hands to harvest perhaps a little earlier than ideal physiological ripening would demand, but dictating with rapidly escalating sugars and depleting acids. The result was plump forward enjoyable wines, but perhaps with a ceiling mandated on their greatness. 2007, unquestionably the most difficult of the four vintages, required a great deal of judgment and caution, balancing the condition of the vines and the desire to push the fruit further for deeper fruit, but at least giving us a chance to produce wines with seriious phenolic character and wines with structure, ageability,and food-worthiness. 2008 was that most rare of years, where the decisions are relatively easy and the outcome most assuredly magnificent -- a long cool growing season, giving us both complex fruit, structure, fine tannins, and most importantly, natural balance. 2009, as suggested earlier, was a roller coaster, another vintage filled with challenges, but of a very different sort than 2007. Here it was heat instead of cold and rain, but more than that, a tremendous variability between vineyards and sites depending on soils, microclimate, and water availability. This will result in some tremendously diverse and interesting wines, some with the potential for greatness.
In the end, each vintage produced wines of interest and character, certainly none that could (or should) be characterized as bad. Several with great potential. And, of course, it is these variations in vintage, especially when coupled with the inherent character of Pinot Noir to express itself uniquely in different conditions, that makes this all so fascinating.
Keep the variations coming, nature -- this is where Pinot noir truly shines.
Prior "From the Heart" Musings...
11/18/09 - Assessing the Season
9/13/09 - Making our Mark
7/7/09 - An Unexpected Adventure
5/31/09 - One Simple Measure of a Great Wine
4/21/09 - Traditional Winemaking and What That Means
4/3/09 - Climate Change and Pinot Noir
2/15/09 - 2006 vs 2007 Oregon Vintages
Terry Peasley Pen & Ink Drawing - Luminous Hills Vineyard
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