Beacon Hill Blanc de Blancs
Yamhill County Sparkling Wine
 Some of the noblest expressions of Chardonnay in the world come in a heavy green bottle with a mushroom-shaped cork and a wire seal. They come from conscientious, small grower-bottlers in towns like Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Avize, and Cramant. They are great wines with bubbles. In only the finest vintages, Soter Vineyards strives to produce a sparkling wine with as much opulence, citrusy structure and charm. We make such a wine only when we know we can meet this standard - which is once in a great while - and we call it Blanc de Blancs. We see it as simply an acknowledgment of how fine the Chardonnay expresses itself in our vineyard in exceptional vintages.Wine First, and then Sparkling.
Every Soter wine is the product of low yields in the vineyard. We aim to create
a rich and expressive base wine as the foundation for our complex, fine-beaded
sparkling wines. These low yields are responsible not only for concentration,
but also for prominent aromatics; a vine that carries a lighter crop load is
able to ripen its skins faster, and therefore produce more flavorful juice when
harvest time comes. Soter endeavors to reach a perfect balance - the grapes
are asked for maximum ripeness of flavor, and picked just at the limit of feasibility
for sparkling wine production. If we were to guess, perhaps less than 5% of
the sparkling wine produced in the world is intended to reach this standard
of quality.
Terroir
The cool climate and shallow siltstone soils of Beacon Hill lend themselves to the development of perfectly balanced, early-maturing grapes for sparkling wine. Our three acres of Chardonnay, planted in 1988 to noble Dijon clones, give wonderful structure and character to the Blanc de Blancs. The firm acidity we strive for serves the wines very well during the aging process, and our Chardonnay's naturally expressive personality only gains in complexity with time in the bottle. 
Vinification
The base wines are fermented separately in a mixture of new, neutral, and stainless steel barrels, and then aged in these casks. After bottling, the Blanc de Blancs spends at least nine full years on the yeast ("sur lattes") before it is disgorged and given a small dosage of sugar, between 7 to 8 grams per bottle. Because the base wine we begin with is so rich, we feel that this small dosage (the industry standard is 10g-12g, and 15g is still permissible for 'Brut' wines) is all we need to balance the wine. Excessive sweetener is not needed as a performance enhancer at Soter, as it is in many overcropped, excessively acidic sparkling wines. Every Soter sparkling wine is vintage-dated, vineyard-designated, and disgorgement-dated. The disgorgement date is very important to us, because we feel that the consumer has a right to know how long the wine has been aged on the yeast and how long it has been corked. Very few producers anywhere adhere to this practice.
The Wine
With a likely release date in 2007-2008, the first bottling of this wine should be extraordinary, and extraordinarily limited. The long time this wine spends on its yeast will yield glorious bread and brioche aromas, in a perfectly fresh style. We likely will see an enhanced texture from this aging process. What starts life as a fairly flinty mineral and green apple aspect in the young wine grows broader on the palate; with time, it gains volume and richness, and the acidity becomes more enveloped in a weightier robe of flavors. Soter Vineyards Blanc de Blancs is a pristine rendition of Chardonnay and the terroir of Beacon Hill that is only made in the grandest vintages. It is a wine for connoisseurs and their special occasions.
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