Résonance Dundee Hills Tasting Room

Maison Louis Jadot was founded in Beaune in 1859 — the same year Oregon became a state. After more than 150 years making wine only in Burgundy, the house went looking for somewhere else that could express terroir the way home did. New Zealand and Chile were considered. The Willamette Valley won.

In April 2013 Thibault Gagey, whose family has run Jadot since 1962, came to survey a vineyard near Carlton called Résonance with Jacques Lardière, who had just retired after leading Jadot’s winemaking for 42 vintages. They tasted through dozens of wines made from the site’s fruit. Lardière sat back and said, “Perfect.” Two months into retirement, he came out of it to help found the project. He still turns up at harvest to do punch-downs and work the sorting table.

The vineyard was originally planted in 1981, own-rooted and ungrafted, which is rare. They kept the name because résonance suggests great things to come. Jadot has since added three more estate sites: Jolis Monts in Yamhill-Carlton, Découverte in the Dundee Hills, and an 82-acre Eola-Amity Hills property acquired in 2022.

Winemaker Guillaume Large joined in 2016 from Jadot, where he was cellarmaster and assistant technical director. Born in Pouilly-Fuissé in 1982, he grew up in a family vineyard planted by his great-grandfather and earned his Oenologist’s National Diploma at Dijon. He’d told people he would never leave Burgundy. A year later he moved his family to Oregon. His framing of the project is that it isn’t about replicating Burgundy here — it’s about using Burgundian technique to unlock what this place already is.

The Dundee Hills Tasting Salon sits on Découverte Vineyard, 15 acres with 12.5 in Pinot Noir and 2.5 in Chardonnay, on Jory volcanic soil. It’s built from reclaimed barn wood, with an intimate tasting bar indoors and a patio under century-old oaks looking across the valley. The salon sits on the 45th parallel, the same latitude as Burgundy — which is the entire premise of the project.

The tasting here is a guided comparison between Résonance and limited-availability Maison Louis Jadot wines, with a French-inspired provisions board included. Résonance’s 2021 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir was named #9 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100.