Get to Know the Riveting Origin of Three Feathers Pinot POP!
Pinot POP! owes it’s beginnings to the 2020 vineyard growing season, which will go down in Oregon Wine history as the Year of the Fires. This is an unspoken topic in the Industry, as many vineyards suffered huge losses from smoke taint in their grapes. Wines produced that year are assumed to have smoke taint, even if they don’t.
Pinot Noir grapes are most susceptible to smoke due to their thin skins. Since red wine is made from grape juice aged with the skins, in the case of smoke exposure skin contact intensifies the smoky taste. In white wine making, the grapes are typically pressed immediately so the juice does not come into contact with the skins for as long.
At Three Feathers, we had been unaffected by fire for most of the 2020 season because of our location and altitude. Smoke, like frost, tends to linger in the valleys so we hoped to escape the problem. The season had been warm and dry, creating a superior crop of grapes and yields were high. The plants were loaded with fruit.
Fire on Chehalem Mountains
We took a usual pre-harvest break in Utah and were happily vacationing there when the bad news came in. Neighbors to the north of us, on Chehalem Mountains, had a celebratory bonfire. They neglected to put it out completely and during the night of Labor Day, the winds picked up and rekindled the fire sweeping it south, over the mountain. Helicopters dropping water were brought in. The area was evacuated including many farm animals. The fire could be seen from Three Feathers in ominous red clouds. One change of wind direction and we would be in flames.
We were saved by the power of those winds and the power of the fire fighters!
Later, we could see that strong winds had swept the fire so fast up the gorge on Chehalem Mountains that the ground was scorched but the tops of the trees were not touched. Several months later, the burning was barely noticeable.
Tough Decisions – to make or not to make?
Following the panic of this event, we found ourselves faced with tough decisions about what to do with our Pinot Noir. At Three Feathers, we do not like waste and if our grapes were not picked or used it would have been a terrible waste.
Our first vintage of Pinot Gris was harvested and we made a superior award-winning wine that sold out. We also picked our early-ripening Pinot Madeleine and made our first vintage single-clone wine which received 90 points from James Suckling.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention – the creation of Pinot POP!
Our biggest concern was the Pommard Block. This Pinot Noir grape is always the last to ripen and the plants were loaded with fruit. Firm believers in the idea that “Necessity is the Mother of Invention”, we decided to try something new : Pinot POP!
The Pommard grapes were harvested very early and treated like any red wine – crushed and aged on the skins for a few weeks. Then the resulting juice was transferred to stainless steel vats where it remained for 10 months before bottling. At this point, the wine was force-carbonated to create a sparkling red wine and sealed with a pop-off cider bottle cap.
The concept of Pinot POP! was to create a whimsical non-vintage “bubbly” at a reasonable price and market it to young buyers with a hip eye-catching label. We assigned the task of creating the label to our 19-year old grandson, Felix Prudhomme who is an aspiring graphic designer. With a bit of family input, he succeeded and then some!
Pinot POP! a Success Story
Pinot POP! was selling off the shelves quickly. Due to popular demand, we decided to make this sparkling wine again in 2022. We had already sold out of the original vintage by the time the 2022 vintage was ready.
Three years later, Three Feathers Pinot POP! remains one of our most popular products, thus marking a Happy Ending to a very challenging vineyard growing season.
