The Wine

This wine is named Fence Line in honor of the infamous and failed experiment our parents did in 1977 of fencing in a three-acre section of vines and releasing a flock of geese to eat the weeds. Since we had well-socialized the geese, having raised them from tiny goslings, they only wanted to line up along the fence line and watch us. The fruit for this five-case lot of estate Pinot noir comes from the row of vines where the geese lined up along the fence line.

~ Alex and Alison Sokol Blosser, siblings and second-generation winegrowers

Originally planted to Riesling, Goosepen Block was replanted in 1998 with Pommard-clone Pinot noir as the original plantings were affected by Phylloxera. The soil is all Jory, the distinctive red clay loam of the Dundee Hills, deposited repeatedly by the Columbia River Basalt Flows 14 to 17 million years ago. 15,000 years ago, the Missoula floods swept through the Willamette Valley, reaching a height of 300 feet and leaving silt deposits behind. The red volcanic soil above the 300 foot mark that remained untouched forms what is today the Dundee Hills AVA. Pinot noirs from the Dundee Hills exhibit characteristic flavors of finessed earthiness and minerality.

Our certified organic farming practices ensure healthy, balanced vines. Careful handwork on each vine and limited yields allow our vines to produce fruit that truly expresses the brilliance of our site. The grapes for Fence Line and the entire Goosepen Block were hand-harvested on September 19, 2018 at 23 Brix. The 2018 vintage was extraordinary in so many aspects, primarily due to the extra hang time the grapes received.

We hand-sorted through every grape before it went into a fermenter; these grapes were de-stemmed without crushing, to preserve as many whole berries as possible. We used a yeast native to our estate for fermentation. After pressing, the wine went very quickly to barrels where it underwent a slow and quick malolactic fermentation. The barrels, 23% of which were new, were all fine-grain French oak with a medium-light toast from a number of different French cooperages. This wine spent a total of 16 months in barrel.

We expect this wine to approach its peak between five and ten years, and, with proper cellaring, will continue to develop and drink beautifully for another twenty years or more.

Excerpt from At Home in the Vineyard: Cultivating a Winery, an Industry, and a Life by Susan Sokol Blosser:

“The experiment for which I had the highest hopes turned out to be our biggest failure. We got the idea of using geese in the vineyard when we heard they were used to weed the fields at mint farms – they ate the weeds and left the mint. I envisioned a pastoral scene with fat, happy geese wandering around the vineyard, feasting on weeds and leaving the vines to grow healthy and lush. Here was an idea that had everything going for it. It was more environmentally friendly than spraying herbicide or running equipment to mow or till; and it would save time and money. We chose a block of vines that we could fence relatively easily, three acres of Riesling adjacent to our house. We could watch the geese from our deck.

There were some immediate obstacles. We needed to fence, but we also needed to get a tractor up and down the rows to spray for mildew and botrytis (rot). We met this challenge with a makeshift chicken wire fence that had to be removed when we needed to spray, which was every ten to fourteen days all summer. But we figured all this extra time and energy was a small price to pay for such a great idea.

Two dozen white Chinese goslings arrived at our house in March. I had never had any farm animals and couldn't wait. When we opened the box, forty-eight tiny bright eyes looked up and gave us little goose smiles, accompanied by considerable twittering. We bonded immediately. They were so little that we put them in a small pen until they got bigger and we got the fencing in place. They came waddling, honking eagerly; whenever they saw or heard us. We chuckled at their antics.

In April, when the vines had not fully leafed out but the grass and weeds were growing fast and at their tender and tasty best, we embarked on our great experiment. As far as we knew, no other vineyard in Oregon had even thought of trying this. We put the geese in among the vines, in a sec­tion that has been known since as the Goosepen Block. The young geese loved their new freedom and wandered around giving all the various plants the taste test. I expected they would develop a taste for the leafy weeds. The vines would be too high for them to reach, anyway.

Our plan started to fall apart right away. The geese just wanted to be near us. When we went out onto the deck to see how they were doing, they'd come running over and line up along the fence, honking at us. When we weren't outside, they would sit quietly at the fence and wait for us to reappear. I tried going into the vineyard and showing them the far reaches of the block. They dutifully allowed me to herd them, and then they went back to their positions along the fence line facing our house. We thought maybe they would cover more of the block after they had eaten all the weeds in the section near the house. It never happened. They spent the rest of their lives trying to be near us, while the weeds grew freely.

We chose one pair to keep, and the rest ended up in our freezer. I cooked one, but we couldn't eat it. They stayed in the freezer for years. I was simply unable to bring myself to deal with them. It wasn't until we moved and I had to empty the freezer that I finally closed the chapter on the geese – except, that is, for the two goose-down pillows that Bill had given me for Christmas. For many years we laid our heads on the fluffy remains of our unwilling weed eaters.”

THe Winery

For nearly 50 years, the Sokol Blosser family has been perfecting Pinot noir. Now with the second generation of Sokol Blossers at the helm, the winery is poised to enter a new millennium under the guidance of Winemaker and Co-President Alex Sokol Blosser and his sister, CEO and Co-President Alison Sokol Blosser. As the new generation continues the legacy of their pioneering parents, the focus remains on crafting exemplary wines that truly reflect the brilliance of the family’s certified organic 88-acre hillside vineyards in the Dundee Hills. A certified B Corp, Sokol Blosser remains committed to an overall sustainable approach.

Learn more about Sokol Blosser
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All wine is sold FOB the location of the winery that produced the lot purchased. WVWA is not responsible for shipping wine. Shipping or delivery arrangements, expenses and insurance are the sole responsibility of the purchaser. Any shipment of wines out-of-state is the responsibility of the purchaser, who is solely responsible for compliance with the laws and regulations of said state.

The producing winery currently has distribution in the below listed countries and states. A list of distributors is available upon request.
BE, CA, KY, KD, FI, HK, JP, KR, MX, SE, TC, UK

USA: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, WV, WY
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