Le Cadeau Vineyard

Tom and Deb Mortimer started looking for vineyard land in 1996. A year later they found 28 uncultivated acres on the south slope of Parrett Mountain, a few miles east of Newberg. Nothing grew there but poison oak, blackberries, and scrub oak, and the brush was thick enough to hide the valley below entirely. Tom looked at it and told Deb it would make a great vineyard for Pinot Noir.

The ground turned out to be brutally rocky. One vineyard adviser took a look and said he had no idea how they’d get posts into it. Clearing took two years. Another consultant monitored temperatures for a month and confirmed the site matched Oregon’s best Pinot vineyards.

The first six acres went in the ground in 1999. The 2002 Pinot Noir was bottled in January 2004 and released in June 2005 — eight years and four months after they bought the land.

The vineyard now covers 16 to 17 acres between 610 and 725 feet, surrounded by forest on all four sides, on thin topsoil over broken volcanic basalt. Soils vary across Jory, Nekia, and Witzel, with Witzel dominant. What sets it apart is the clonal work: 19 clones of Pinot Noir and seven of Chardonnay across six rootstocks, including virtually all the noteworthy Dijons, Pommard, Wädenswil, Mariafeld, Swan, Hanzell, Mount Eden, multiple Calera selections, and Vosne-Romanée 122, which Mortimer planted in 2012 among the first in Oregon. There’s also an undefined clone the vineyard manager found, which Tom calls the José Clone.

The name means “the gift” in French, for how the Mortimers saw the site.

The philosophy is European: the vineyard is the star, not the winemaker. The wide range of cuvées exists to show the different faces of one piece of ground. In the early years Tom made the unusual decision to invite several prominent Oregon winemakers to craft his different bottlings. He also partners with Jim Sanders on a second label, Aubichon; Sanders began his career at Beaux Frères under Mike Etzel.

The vineyard is LIVE certified and incorporates biodynamic practice. The tasting room is in downtown Dundee at The Dundee Hotel.