Domaine Drouhin Oregon

Domaine Drouhin Oregon is the Willamette Valley estate of the Drouhin family of Beaune, the Burgundy house that Joseph Drouhin founded in 1880 after moving down from Chablis. The Oregon winery was established in 1987 and the four-level gravity-flow cellar was built on the site in 1989. It sits on a 235-acre property in the Dundee Hills, of which 130 acres are hillside vineyard. Thirteen of those acres are Chardonnay, planted at various elevations and interplanted alongside rows of Pinot Noir, which is how it is done in Burgundy and is not how it is usually done in Oregon.

Véronique Drouhin is the head winemaker and has been since the beginning. She grew up in Beaune, has made more than thirty vintages in each of Burgundy and Oregon, and in Burgundy carries the title Guardian of the Drouhin Palate, which makes her responsible for the house style across everything the family produces. In 2019 she was awarded the Légion d'Honneur. Her brother Philippe Drouhin runs the vineyards across Burgundy, Chablis and Oregon; he joined the family firm in 1988 and chooses the plant material, the soil work and the picking dates.

The farming is sustainable and L.I.V.E. certified. Everything planted at the Dundee Hills estate is specific to the site, and the family grows two large blocks of its own rootstock so that it can graft its own cuttings rather than buy in plant material. Picking is by hand into 25lb totes. In the cellar the Pinot Noir is hand-sorted and de-stemmed, ferments at its own pace over seven to twelve days with punch-downs and pump-overs, then goes to barrel for twelve to fourteen months in 20 per cent new French oak, coopered for them in Burgundy. The wines rest several months before bottling and a further six to eighteen months before release. It is a Burgundian recipe applied to Oregon fruit, and the house states its own goal plainly: Pinot Noir with balance, elegance and finesse.

In 2013 the family bought a second vineyard, Roserock, at the southern tip of the Eola-Amity Hills. It is a genuinely different place: ancient volcanic soils, a cooler elevation range and the cooling effect of the Van Duzer corridor, which funnels Pacific air in through the Coast Range. Roserock is also L.I.V.E. certified and has eleven acres of Chardonnay planted around 2013. Isabelle Dutartre, who trained at Maison Joseph Drouhin in Beaune under Robert Drouhin and then spent seven years at the Dundee Hills winery, came back in 2024 as winemaker at the new Roserock cellar.

That two-estate structure is the thing to hold on to, because the wines are not all from the same place and the labels do not shout about it. Cuvée Louise Pinot Noir is the Dundee Hills flagship, a barrel selection Véronique makes from three parcels at different elevations on the home estate. The Roserock Zéphirine Pinot Noir is the equivalent selection from Roserock, and takes its name from the Zéphirine Drouhin climbing rose. The Roserock Chardonnay is from the Eola-Amity Hills too, and is the sensible way into the house.

Between those sit the Laurene Pinot Noir, the straight Dundee Hills Pinot Noir and the Roserock Maigold Chardonnay.