Just in time for Oregon Wine Month and Mother’s Day! This exceptional vintage was crafted with native yeast and bottled in Oregon Glass. The wine is more flavorful than most Gris with a balance of sweetness, acidity and minerality with a slight effervescence at the finish.
Three Feathers Pinot Gris 2024 – OWP Cellar Selects May 2026
The tasting notes from the OWP panel are as follows:
A delicate, aromatic expression with honeysuckle, wet stone, lime and pineapple guava. Each sip is light but layered—tangerine, honeydew, and limequat intertwine with notes of candied ginger and honeycomb. Elegant and understated.
Oregon has experienced a mild and wet winter these past months. Not as much snow as desired but plenty of rain to fill up aquifers and retention ponds.
Three Feathers vineyards, farm and gardens are springing to life! The bluebirds have arrived and are having their annual contest with the green swallows for nesting boxes. The Daphne and Star Magnolia are blooming at the front door and the odor is intoxicating. The frogs in the pond, the Spring Peepers, are making a racket every night.
The vines are all manicured, pruned and tied to the wires in preparation for what, I think, will be an early bud break this year. We hope this year will bring an end to the industry doldrums.
We are doing pours ourselves and getting a very good response at our venues (image below taken at Market of Choice). Everyone loves the wines, especially the Newly Released 2024 Pinot Gris which is soon to be featured in a local publication – Stay Tuned!
Our Pinot POP is still the favorite with excellent sales for Valentine’s Day. The label is eye-catching makes it easy to spot on the store shelves (shown here on prominent display at New Seasons).
We continue to look for ways to nurture our soil which is quite acidic and this year we planted oats in the rows of the Pinot Gris Block at Three Feathers. It helps to sweeten the soil and add nitrogen. Also, oats tend to reseed themselves-giving a long-term benefit.
As usual this is our busiest time of the year as we prepare the gardens for the summer. Victor is power-washing, Christine is weeding, pruning and mowing and Scott is doing everything in the vineyards. We expect our grandson, the eponymous Torio of Torio Vineyard, to arrive after his high school graduation the end of June to help with vines. He is bringing his friend Noah who was here last season and we are so grateful to have them both.
The birds are going nuts everywhere and we frequently have them stray into the open-air greenhouse. Often we have hummingbirds but today a falcon flew in and stayed a bit until he could figure out his exit. I have tentatively identified it as a Merlin falcon. We never stop having new species of visitors on our mountain top.
Just as I predicted above, while writing this article we had a few warm days and POP! Bud break has sprung forth – earlier this year! We are off to the races on another exciting Vineyard Growing Season.
Enjoy Three Feathers Pinot POP on Valentine’s Day!
Three Feathers Pinot POP is a playful product of the Pommard clone of Pinot Noir. Made from high-elevation Estate Grown Pommard grapes from our Torio Vineyard, this exceptional lightly sparkling red wine is refreshing, exuberant and playful. With aromas of strawberry and bramble-berry fruits, this wine is a fun accompaniment for barbecues and potluck.
Our Three Feathers Pinot POP is also the color of Hearts & Roses. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and this sparkling wine will accompany any dish your Heart desires. Pop the Top and share a bottle with the ones you Love!
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! Read the full story….
Felix Prudhomme at work
Felix enjoying a laugh.
Pinot POP! a Success Story
Our first vintage 2020 Pinot POP! sold 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. Four years later, Three Feathers Pinot POP! remains one of our most popular products.
Photo by Michael Alberty, published in The Oregonian, including Three Feathers Pinot POP.
Sandra (left) and Christine (right) representing Three Feathers
Thank You, Sandra! A Heartfelt Retirement Tribute
Announcing the retirement of Three Feathers Sales & Marketing Manager, Sandra Hogan, who has been by our side working hard from the beginning.
Sandra has a resume of Marketing & Sales in many areas and we were very blessed for her help in establishing our brand. From the Sip in McMinnville, to Open Houses at the Vineyard, to pouring at all of our customers retail locations, Sandra contributed Enthusiasm, Expertise and Gravitas to our brand.
We wish her the very best and hope she enjoys some well-earned relaxation.
Discover Why Local is Better: The Appeal Behind Three Feathers
Three Feathers Vineyard is a small, locally owned family farm where, among other things, we grow our own Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris grapes. We use these local grapes, and these grapes only, to produce our Limited Edition Wines.
François and Christine looking at the vines in Block One of Three Feathers
Why is that important? Why is that desirable?
Our vineyard and wines are typical of what the Oregon wine industry used to be; vineyards under 20 acres producing their own wine from their own grapes. In the past 10 years, since we planted our vineyard, there has been an explosion of new growers, wineries and tasting rooms.
Now, of the top 100 producers of wine in Oregon, 50% of the production is by companies owned outside of the State. This has an effect on our industry here. These companies are driven by very slim profit margins and make their money on volume. This volume drives prices down. Decisions are made that affect all the growers they buy from and they are not concerned about the long-term effect on our local businesses.
The loss of more and more locally owned and operated vineyards gives an urgency to asking for support from an informed public. Not all wineries advertise their out-of-state ownership, so sometimes it is hard to tell.
Local Wines are Unique and Seasonally Crafted
Christine and Victor harvesting our Block 3 Pinot Gris for the first time.
Locally produced wines, such as ours, expect every vintage to be different. We are dependent on seasons and growing conditions, the same as wines have been made over the centuries. Industrial wine production cannot afford to have variation. The wines are blended and modified in the winery to produce sameness and consistency.
These hands were made for picking – Three Feathers grape harvest 2020.
The Appeal Behind Three Feathers
As a small, family and women owned company we would like to see more attention paid to supporting Local Vines and Local Wines. The Local movement is real and gets a lot of attention. These are family farms that protect the land and produce world-class wines. The grapes and the wine are a product of individual attention, care and love of craftsmanship and respect for the individual growing seasons.
Three Feathers summer team gathered for a portrait
We assure you that we live, grow, and produce here and are proud of our local, Oregon wines. We hope you will appreciate them as well and when you purchase Oregon wines that you look for brands that you know are grown and produced here.
2025 Season at Three Feathers : A Rich & Abundant Journey
As we approach Harvest 2025, it is time to summarize this rich and abundant season.
We have had a good year with generous rainfall in the spring and relatively even weather ; no huge spikes of cold or hot, wet or dry. For some reason, which we cannot understand, this has been a year of very heavy production in all the plants in the gardens and the vineyard.
Cherry trees, both wild and domestic, produced record crops. The wild cherries by the house dropped so much fruit that we were raking it up. The apple trees are loaded and limbs need to be supported to keep them from breaking. Our table grapes the same. Flowering plants produced abundant flowers and all the plant material was growing overtime.
This year’s rich activity in the vineyards has been completely determined by the unusual growing conditions. We have had the same response from the vines as the other plants on the property. The entire summer has been taken up with cutting the vines back, keeping them from being in the way of the tractors for spraying.
Even after veraison, when the plants normally stop producing shoots, the vines kept pushing out growth at the trunks, flowers and fruit. Some of the vines, especially the Dijon clones 667, had ripening clusters and green clusters side by side.
As of this week, September 15th, we are still “hedging” plants – cutting back excess growth that overhangs the aisles.
Looking Forward
I am anticipating a record crop of grapes for 2025 throughout the entire valley.
Back by POPular Demand – 2024 Three Feathers Pinot POP!
The 2024 version of our very POPular Pinot POP will be bottled in early February – just in time for Valentine’s Day. We hope to line up our customer’s who have been waiting for this event and pre-sell a lot of POP.
This year we have made plenty to satisfy demand. In addition, for the first time, we are using glass that is made in the USA from locally sourced recycling manufacturers. It has been our quest for several years to find glass that is not from overseas. As Oregon recycles a record amount of our glass waste in this state it seemed ridiculous to be buying glass manufactured in China. We feel that this is a real selling point in an effort to be more sustainable.
Independence Day promo Three Feathers Pinot POP
As pointed out by our source – glass is infinitely recyclable, unlike other wine containers.
What makes our POP so unique and delicious is that the red grapes are fermented in the normal way for still red wine and then aged in stainless steel instead of barrels. The flavors are crisp, fruity, and lightly carbonated to achieve a wine that is extremely drinkable by itself or with any meal. Plus, at our $24.00 retail it is immensely affordable for a sparkling wine.
Three Feathers Pinot POP! coming down the assembly line after bottling.
We are bottling soon and will be delivering to our local vendors on February 8th!
2024 Pinot Gris
In March we will be bottling the 2024 Pinot Gris, also in glass made in the USA. This year we have used native yeasts (yeast that occurs naturally in the vineyard) to create our super yummy Pinot Gris. The season was long and the fruit was perfect when it arrived at the winery. The result of the local yeast combined with our Laurelwood soils and aspects unique to the vineyard is a wine found only at our Three Feathers Vineyard.
Pinot Gris has become more popular in recent years as the amount of Chardonnay produced in Oregon increased and the acres planted of Gris have dwindled. People are rediscovering the dry minerality of our crisp and refreshing Oregon white wine. All the fruit is aged in stainless so the fruit flavors come forward.
Look for an announcement of the release of this wine this spring – only $26.00 per bottle!
Overview of Torio Vineyard and distant valley of Hillsboro
Exciting New Three Feathers Vintages in Celebration of the 2024 Growing Season
We will soon be presenting our exciting new Three Feathers Vintages that resulted from this beautiful year’s harvest. But first, it’s time to wrap up the 2024 season and summarize what happened during the year.
Oregon has two seasons; a wet season and a dry season. How much wet and how much dry are usually the critical elements in the vineyard. Without going month by month, I would say that we had normal rainfall in the winter and spring. On March 1st we had 8 inches of snow on the mountain and we were snowed in at home for several days. Snow is always a good thing as the water is released slowly into the ground and nourishes the vines.
By early June, things started to dry out as we transitioned into the dry season. We had no rain for three months and temperatures were mostly normal except for a few days of hot weather. The interesting thing about all this is that the vines produced a lot of bloom and fruit set in the spring with the promise of an exceptional harvest in the fall. However, the dryness, especially without irrigation, can be an issue for certain clones of Pinot Noir. Plants were growing vigorously until the end of the season when certain blocks were showing stress.
Three Feathers Block 1 in dry June months
It has been the fashion recently for vineyards to “dry farm”. I am sure the principle is to intensify the flavors of the grapes and produce better wine. In Europe no one irrigates (see recent article in Decanter about irrigation in a changing climate). Irrigation is also expensive to install. Usually, it is only used for the first few years to get the vines started and farmers can provide temporary water by hand for those years and save the money. At Three Feathers, our vineyard is fully irrigated so we have the flexibility to water if we need to.
Three Feathers reservoir and source of irrigation
Exciting New Three Feathers Vintages
Exactly five months after bud break we began to harvest, starting with the Precoce Pinot Noir on Sept 24th and the Pommard Block at Torio Vineyard. These grapes combined will be the basis for our ever Popular sparkling red: Pinot POP. As we have completely sold out of this wine, we hope to be bottling and releasing in February.
Three Feathers Pinot POP 2022 retail presentation
On Oct 9th we harvested the Pinot Gris for our own production as well. The grapes held well all that time and were luscious, so we anticipate a great vintage.
Three Feathers Pinot Gris Vintage 2022
Stay tuned for announcements of the release of these two great wines for 2024.
Our New Creation: Savory BBQ Duck Breast with Currant & Cherry Pinot Noir Sauce
Summer is the season for fresh black cherries, currants, and picnics by the pond.
While we love our Weber grill and Victor’s recipe for smoked meats (see his Infallible Smoked Turkey recipe which also incredibly well with duck and beef), for or a quick cooking set-up we use our Hibachi grill! It’s portable, easy to start with charcoal and fast to break down for picnics, camping trips and the like.
Duck breasts are a great alternative to chicken or beef and quite simple to cook on the grill. For a medium-rare duck breast, make hash marks in fat-side and cook them fat-side down for 8 minutes. Then turn them over and cook 6 minutes on other side.
We conjured up a special sauce with our Three Feathers Pinot Noir, red currants and black cherries to accompany this delicious meal. Sides were sweet potato purée, grilled pak choi and Cynthia’s special Summer Succo-hash (recipe included below).
Duck Sauce for BBQ Duck Breast with Currants and Cherries
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon rendered Duck Fat
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced fine
1 Valencia orange; peel and set aside peels, then juice and set aside the juice
4 sprigs fresh Rosemary
1 cup chicken stock (or Duck stock if you have it)
¾ cup Three Feathers Estate 2016 Pinot Noir or 2017 Cuvée Virginia
2 cups whole fresh black cherries, pitted
2 cups fresh currants
5 tablespoons butter
Preparation:
Render the fat of one duck breast in a small fry pan. Remove the duck breast and set aside for later.
Add the shallots and cook them until they are soft. Add the garlic and let it soften as well. Transfer the onion and garlic mixture to a small saucepan. Add the Valencia orange peels and the rosemary sprigs. Leave the sprigs on the branch so you can remove them later.
Add the stock, the Pinot Noir, and the Valencia juice to the saucepan. Simmer briefly then add the fruit to the pot. Allow everything to simmer for about 5-10 minutes, or until the cherries have softened.
Remove the cherries carefully from the pot and set aside. Allow the liquid to cool sufficiently then add the butter. Once the butter has melted into the sauce, transfer the liquid to a food processor and blend until smooth.
Re-incorporate the puree to a ceramic bowl with the whole cherries and cover the bowl with foil or a glass lid. Allow the sauce to cool in the fridge until ready to serve with the cooked duck breast. Warm it up prior to cooking in a sauce pan; be careful not to overheat the sauce when you reheat it.
Spoon the sauce and the whole cherries over the sliced duck and serve with Three Feathers Estate 2016 Pinot Noir, 2018 or 2021 Cuvée Virginia.
Cynthia’s Summer “Succo-hash”
Ingredients:
4 ears of fresh corn
1 butternut squash
1 yellow onion
4 slices of bacon
1/8 cup minced fresh parsley
Preparation:
Cook the bacon and reserve the fat. Slice into small lardons.
Cook the corn for six minutes in boiling water. Cool and cut off the cob.
Peel and cube the squash into 1/2” dice. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and roast the squash in the bacon fat until golden brown and toasty.
Dice the onion very fine (1/8” dice). Put about 1TB of the reserved bacon fat in a stainless steel fry pan and heat it up. Add the onion. And sauté until soft and translucent.
Add the corn, squash, and parsley to the pan and fry together until warmed through.
It’s almost August and I have been so busy that I have not had the time to post an update on the 2024 Vineyard Growing Season since before bud break in May!
Budbreak occurred in both vineyards roughly May 25. After budbreak the plants grow rapidly.
Budbreak 2024
The vines bloomed a month later in June and after two weeks of bloom they begin to set their fruit.
Bloom
During these three months until the fruit starts to color up and ripen the vines are keeping everyone busy controlling growth into the “canopy”, and keeping the plants healthy with spraying nutrients and fungicide. In between, we have to control weeds with mowing.
Fruit set
Fruit swell
Now we have a break while the fruit swells and starts to ripen. Growth will slow down and we will begin to look for color in the fruit.
We have experienced what I would call typical Oregon weather this year. Adequate moisture in the winter and spring. Cool nights and warm days starting in July. There were a couple of days of intense heat but the vines reacted to that by growing even faster.
All the damage that we experienced last year in the vines has, for the most part, been reversed. The crop is heavy, healthy and vigorous.
Winding down our Growing Season and looking forward to Harvest
I anticipate harvest in early to mid-October, right on schedule and I predict record crops all over the valley. Just as the birds are making their nests in our vines and watching over their babies, we continue to closely monitor the plants and will give you another report soon.
In the meantime, follow our tasting schedule which is updated regularly for scheduled wine pours in the Portland area. We continue to meet and greet the public during this fun events and share our wines with you!
Our cover crop of Crimson Clover was fabulous this year!
