The Cuvée Lunatique is a fresh and clean Chardonnay that is made in the style of Chablis. To preserve its bright fruit and crisp structure, it is fermented and matured primarily in stainless steel and there is no malolactic fermentation. The name came about because when the winery first got the idea to produce a no oak/no malo Chardonnay, some people thought they were were lunatics. But its growing popularity in the Portland market proves that they weren't so crazy after all.

The new Basalte bottling is from vineyards in our home AVA: Chehalem Mountains. It is sourced from our own Appassionata estate vineyard, the Medici Vineyard, which we farm, and our neighbors at Lia’s Vineyard. The Chehalem Mountains are geologically complex and diverse, formed over millennia by lava flows, wind-blown silt (loess), and uplifted sedimentary seabeds. Our vineyards have the extremely rocky volcanic basalt soils that lend themselves to full-bodied, firmly structured wines.

New to the J. Christopher range of wines, the “Sol et Soliel” Chardonnay was fermented in large (600-liter) oak casks, where it rested on the lees for nearly two years. The fruit was sourced from vineyards in two sub-AVAs of the Willamette Valley: our neighboring Vidon Vineyard here in the Chehalem Mountains, and Yamhill Vineyard in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA. With a rich, lifted aroma and a lush, mineral-infused embrace of the palate, the wine celebrates the stony soils and sunny ripeness that Chardonnay can achieve in our corner of Oregon.

The new Volcanique bottling is sourced from our favorite volcanic soil vineyards in the Dundee Hills AVA. Home to the first Pinot Noir vines ever planted in Oregon, the Dundee Hills are iconic and established the Willamette Valley as a serious wine region. The deep, well-drained, volcanic Jory clay soil gives us beautifully savory wines with purity and a finely focused structure.

Two of the predominant influences on the style of the wines from the Eola Hills are the shallow soils and the cool ocean winds that come through the Coast Range via the Van Duzer Corridor. This lowers temperatures dramatically, especially during late summer afternoons, which helps to retain firm acidity in the fruit. The fruit for this cuvée is from three vineyards in the Walnut Hill area, at the northern end of the Eola-Amity Hills AVA: Dubay, Three Angels and Hirkamp.

This is a three-barrel selection from our 22-acre estate Appassionata Vineyard, which surrounds the winery. We have a great diversity of soil types and clones, giving us many options for the blending palette. This edition is a blend of fruit from the rockiest parts of the vineyard, which has thin volcanic clay topsoil over fractured basalt bedrock. It’s amazing to see how this very rocky soil is reflected in the firm structure, dark, brambly fruit and forceful texture of the wine. That distinctive, stony character is why we decided to do this special cuvée.

The Medici vineyard is situated on the south-facing Chehalem Mountain slope, just a few miles east of the J. Christopher winery. The oldest blocks were planted in 1976, producing lovely, distinctive Pinot Noir and Riesling fruit. We took over the farming in 2015 and immediately converted it to organic viticulture. The old vines bring complexity and layers of minerality, with less of an emphasis on overt fruitiness, making this an ideal site for our style of winemaking.

The Bella Vida vineyard is one of our favorite sites in the heart of the Dundee Hills. With its deep red Jory clay and its stunning view of the Willamette Valley, this vineyard consistently produces exceptional fruit that captures the essence of this beautiful place on earth. The 2017 has the delicacy and fine fruitiness that are characteristic of these hills. It’s a wine that emphasizes finesse over power, with a superb acid structure that will give it great ageability.

The Bieze vineyard sits high up in the Eola Hills, where it benefits from cooling breezes from the west that flow nightly through the Van Duzer Corridor, a break in the Coast Range. This allows for longer hang time, as the grapes ripen more slowly, but retain superb acidity. Pommard and Dijon 667 are grown here in soils formed from layers of volcanic basalt. The 2017 has a pronounced aroma of ripe, red fruits, with a gently persistent palate and a harmonious structure.

Über-Sauvignon is a single-vineyard Sauvignon Blanc from the Willamette Valley’s excellent Croft vineyard. Mineral-driven aromas, with bracing acidity and a refined texture, make this one of the most interesting wines that J. Christopher produces.

The fruit for this wine was harvested from old Riesling vines (planted in 1976) in the Medici Vineyard, which is also in the Chehalem Mountains AVA, just a few miles from the winery. We lease this vineyard and have been farming it organically since 2015. The wine was fermented in a 3,000-liter German oak cask, and rests on the full lees for 12 months before bottling. The extended lees contact allows the wine to clarify and find its own harmonious balance naturally.

This wine is a special selection of a few extraordinary barrels to produce a super-cuvée that is dense and powerful, yet retains the Old World style of elegance and finesse. The wine is not released until Ernst believes it is ready to drink.

This second-label Willamette Valley wine is a blend of barrels from the three appellations where we have long-standing grower relations. The winemaking and fruit sources are the same for all of the wines we produce, but through our top-down barrel selection process, we choose the barrels that are most suited to the very approachable J.J Pinot Noir style. It’s an appealing, fruit-forward expression of cool-climate Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.