"Erin Brooks, The Wine Advocate 96 Points
The 2021 Pinot Noir Laurelwood District has a pale ruby-purple color and slowly unfolding aromas of cranberries, tangerine peel, pipe tobacco and forest floor. The medium-bodied palate is powerful and generous with concentrated fruit, grainy tannins, plenty of refreshing acidity and a long, spicy finish. Drink Date 2024 - 2034 Reviewed May 2023"
Established in 1970 by Oregon wine pioneers Dick & Nancy Ponzi, Ponzi Vineyards was among the first founding wineries to put the Willamette Valley on the map as a world-class wine region. In May 2021, Groupe Bollinger acquired Ponzi Vineyards—the family-owned company’s first property outside France—bringing new life and opportunity to the winery.
In a nutshell: Founders Dick and Nancy Ponzi moved to the Willamette Valley in the late 1960s with a spirit of adventure and a dream to produce world-class, cool climate-grown Pinot Noir. After an extensive search for the perfect location, they invested everything they had into a small 20-acre farm on the northern end of the verdant Willamette Valley. They planted their first vines in 1968, establishing Ponzi Vineyards at a time when there were only a small number of other wineries in the region, forever solidifying their place as Oregon wine pioneers. As the winery grew, the family constructed a sustainably focused gravity-flow winery in 2008 and a state-of-the-art tasting room in 2013. Ponzi Vineyards’ low-intervention, natural approach to winemaking and viticulture, along with consistent high-level acclaim and accolades, have kept the brand as a vanguard Oregon producer.
The Terroir: Ponzi’s estate vineyards lie entirely within the Laurelwood District AVA, nestled within the broader Chehalem Mountains AVA in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Lending name to the region, the Laurelwood soil series here is distinctive and known to produce wines of great elegance and complexity. Found exclusively in the northern edges of the Willamette Valley, the Laurelwood soil series consists of windblown loess atop ancient basalt bedrock. This composition yields wines with abundant spice notes—white pepper, anise, cardamom, and cola. The wines exhibit a beautiful structure, featuring dark, brambly tannins. Soil composition in the region fluctuates depending upon elevation, and further adds to the inherent complexity in finshed wines. In the first 10-15 years of a vines life, the loess layer is dominant, resulting in wines with redder fruit flavours and a lighter structure. The duration of influence depends upon topsoil depth, with lower elevations having thicker loess layers—up to 6 feet—maintaining loess characteristics longer. Higher elevations, with only 6 inches of topsoil, shift to the basalt layer more quickly, revealing darker, richer flavors in wines.
