Inside the Technical Tasting: Unlocking the Secrets of Our Award-Winning Wines

It’s not pure coincidence that the Dundee Hills produces so many award-winning wines each year. The prestige of the region due to the Jory soil, the ideal climate or the commitment to sustainable farming practices in the vineyards is just the start. The winemakers in Dundee Hills are always improving their craft. The annual technical tasting is one of the many tools they use to continually produce some of the best wines in the world.

Two words have always run in parallel when describing the Dundee Hills, from when the first vines were planted by David Lett and Dick Erath more than half a century ago through today: collaboration and innovation. The technical tasting is a masterclass in both. Every summer, Dundee Hills winemakers are welcomed into a collaborative tasting of the vintage that’s next to be released. Everyone brings their own bottle samples, pour tastings, and then the shop talk starts.

While it’s instinctive to assume the Willamette Valley experiences the same growing conditions, the reality is numerous micro-climates exist within short distances. The Dundee Hills has its own set of conditions presented by Mother Nature each year. At the technical tasting, winemakers share how they approached their growing season – all while tasting the outcome in their glass.

The technical tasting is a cherished tradition among our winemakers, offering them a moment to sit side-by-side with each other, sharing their individual successes and their challenges through the lens of a community that wants the whole region to flourish. After an afternoon together, they’ve developed a vintage report to be shared with tasting room staff and marketing teams across the region. From there, each individual winery gets to add the nuance of their own winemaker’s fingerprints on the vintage.

“Our members value the opportunity to talk candidly with each other about the vintage,” says Denise Flora, President of the Dundee Hills Winegrowers Association and owner of Native Flora. “The end result is the vintage report, which is a great resource for our tasting rooms, allowing them broader insight into the Dundee Hills region and the vintages coming from it.”

This collaborative nature was woven into the fabric of the Dundee Hills from the very beginning when the founding wineries would gather weekly to talk about what they were seeing. This community-first perspective is part of the DNA and continues today through sharing equipment and knowledge to solve problems, selling each other grapes and pitching in when winemakers need an extra hand.