Twomey winery is a relative newcomer to Willamette Valley of Oregon, yet the name might sound familiar. It's because the winery was founded over 20 years ago in California, and you might have tasted some of their wines.
Twomey Winery Story
Twomey's story is a bit like a Russian doll; it's a story within another story. To see a complete picture, we need to look back over half a century ago.
It all started in 1972 when Ray Twomey Duncan, a Colorado entrepreneur, and Justin Meyer, a Christian Brothers-trained winemaker, co-founded Silver Oak in Napa Valley and started making wine in a former dairy barn. Their inaugural vintage was only 1,000 cases.
In two decades to follow, Silver Oak grew in popularity. Most of their Napa Valley and Alexander Valley Cabernets were sold from the winery and became a highly sought-after staple on restaurant wine lists.
In 1994 Justin picked Daniel Baron to continue his work and consulted until retirement in 2001 when he sold his share of Silver Oak to the Duncan family. Today Ray's sons, David and Tim Duncan own and operate the winery.
So what does all of that has to do with Twomey winery? Well, Silver Oak is the brand that earned the reputation for its Cabernet Sauvignon wines.
In 1999 Twomey was founded to focus on vineyard-specific cool-climate Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc wines. At first, they produced Pinot Noir with fruit from the Russian River, Anderson, and other cool-climate California AVAs.
In 2014, Twomey produced the first vintage Oregon Pinot Noir with fruit from Dick Erath's Prince Hill vineyard. To achieve this, the Duncan family leveraged their 30-year long friendship with Dick Erath, one of their pioneers of Willamette Valley of Oregon.
In 2017 Twomey acquired Prince Hill vineyard, and it's kind of a big deal for two main reasons. First, Prince Hill is a living history property that Dick Erath farmed for over 35 years. Second, it's located in Dundee Hills - the premier AVA (American Viticultural Area) in Willamette Valey of Oregon.
In 2020 Twomey winery opened a small tasting room while planning and building a winemaking facility and new tasting room on the property. We had a chance to taste Twomey's wines in the tasting room, and here's our first professional impression.
Tasting Twomey Wines
Twomey offers a few tasting flights, including Pinot Noir from California and Silver Oak Cabs. It's a unique experience that very few wine tasting rooms in Willamette Valley can offer. If you wine swinging in the area and someone from your party doesn't care for Pinots, they can taste Cabs.
We picked the flight that compares Oregon and California Pinots and offers a taste of newly-released Estate Sauvignon Blanc.
2020 Twomey Sauvignon Blanc is hardly a typical style of Sauv Blanc. We could place neither with gold-standard Sancerre of France or modern-style New Zealand wines.
It's in a category of its own thanks to its origin from Napa and Sonoma of California, the addition of a tiny quantity of Chardonnay (1%), and obscure Sauvignon Gris (3%) and rare for Sauvignon Blanc based wine wood barrels aging.
While hardly typical, we suspect Twomey Sauv Blanc can become a crowd-pleaser. It's easy to like its nectarine-apricot, Golden Delicious apple, ripe Meyer lemon, and a hint of vanilla aroma and flavors.
So if you're a Sauvignon Blanc purist, be ready for a surprise, but if you're an open-minded wine swinger, you are likely to enjoy it.
Next, we tasted two 2018 Californian Pinot Noirs: Bien Nacido Vineyard from Santa Maria Valley and 2018 Soberanes Vineyard from Santa Lucia Highlands. And followed with two 2018 Pinot Noirs from Willamette Valley: Prince Hill Vineyard and Dundee Hills.
It was an exciting flight for a few reasons. First, we got a chance to do a horizontal tasting by comparing the same vintage wines made by the same producer with grapes from different vineyard sites of the same region. This was true for both California and Oregon wines.
Then we picked the same vintage wines made by the same producer but from grapes of the entirely different wine region.
It's possible, and we've done it several times for our wine club members, but it's pretty rare when we go to the wineries.
Comparing these wines was challenging because the same attention was paid to all of them, and it really came down to the terroir differences of each wine. Why is that hard? The difference doesn't necessarily mean that one wine is better than another.
Being partial to Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, we still couldn't say it kicked Californian wines butt. All four were excellent, and we like each one of them for their uniqueness. Still, we took home a couple of bottles, which came down to personal preference rather than superiority.
2018 Bien Nacido attracted us with its perfumed nose with a peppery note and long marionberry-like aftertaste. We also found some similarities to Willamette Valley Pinots.
2018 Dundee Hills won us with jammy strawberry compote aroma and black cherry flavor with a savory paprika touch.
Finish
Visiting Twomey winery is a fantastic example of why wine lovers like us need to go wine tasting. Tastings like this offer one-of-a-kind experiences to taste and compare small production wines that 99.9% of humanity will never try. That's priceless.
Should you visit Twomey winery in Willamette Valley of Oregon? We say yes for three reasons: the quality of their wines, diversity of wine flights and super knowledgable staff. The last bit is a big deal for us because there was no nerdy question Ross, the tasting room manager, couldn't answer.
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