Hyland Estates: Two Oregon White Wines Perfect for Any Season

Pair white wine with fish and chicken, red wine with red meat. Sound advice, even if it is a bit general. Some would add: drink white wine when the weather is hot, red wine when the weather is cool. This statement I too mostly agree with, except that I really enjoy drinking white wine any time of year. So, as the weather begins to cool, I’m not yet ready to make the switch to mostly red wines.

Lucky for me, we’ve been holding two bottles of white wine from Oregon producer, Hyland Estates. We received the wines, 2013 Hyland Estates Riesling and 2013 Hyland Estates Gewürztraminer, as tasting samples.

At an “after party” during the recent Wine Bloggers Conference in Corning, N.Y., we tasted a range of wines produced by both Hyland Estates and Soléna Estate. Both of these wines were among those we sampled during that tasting.

We opened both wines on a recent Sunday evening, after the drive home from a weekend spent in Point Reyes Station. The day before we discovered the Saturday morning Farmers Market at Toby’s in the same town.

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The Market included a wide variety of seasonal lettuces, fruits, vegetables, baked goods, coffee and cheese. Many of the vendors greeted their customers by name, giving the Market a real sense of community to us. We took advantage of the selection to purchase several kinds of cheese and salami to bring home with us.

When we returned home Sunday afternoon, we quickly popped the two white wines in the refrigerator to chill and decided to pair them with the cheese and salami we purchased the day before. We had suitcases to unpack and laundry to do, therefore, a simple evening meal was in order. Turns out, this pairing worked perfectly.

The Wine

2013 Hyland Estates Riesling — golden yellow in the glass with delicate aromas characteristic of Riesling, aromas often described as petrol, along with caramel and pineapple. Stony minerality blends with tart pineapple and a hint of Meyer lemon. The finish is clean, juicy and very long with nice acidity and lingering fruit flavors. 12.3% abv. $25

This wine leaves you smacking your lips and is just the glass of wine you would think of reaching for on a warm afternoon to quench your thirst. Turns out, its just what I want to reach for on a cool autumn afternoon too. It is refreshing, well balanced and has plenty of flavor.

2013 Hyland Estates Gewürztraminer — medium yellow in the glass with generous melon aromas. Ripe melon flavors combine with a hints of spice, herbal notes and a bit of citrus pith. Once again, brilliant acidity and a clean, dry finish. 12.5% abv. $28

As this wine warms, it becomes very aromatic and flavors just continue to develop. I love the combination of flavor and tongue-tingling acidity in this wine. It is delicious with food, but I love the flavors of the wine on its own too.

Both wines are sourced from the historic Hyland Estates Vineyard, located in the McMinnville AVA in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Hyland was one of the very earliest vineyards to be planted in the area. The first vines, Pinot Noir of course, were planted in 1971.

Until 2007, when the vineyard was purchased by NW Wine Company’s owners – Laurent Montalieu, Danielle Andrus Montalieu and John Niemeyer, the original owners never made wine of their own. Instead, the fruit was sold to many well-known (and award winning) Willamette Valley wineries.

Since 2007, Hyland Vineyard has been expanded, to just over 200 acres, with the most recent plantings completed in 2009. Hyland Estates began producing estate Pinot Noir, Riesling and Gewürztraminer under its own label in 2011.

The Cheese and Salami

Point Reyes Original Blue — creamy and soft with deep blue-green veins. The flavor is salty, pungent and creamy. The flavors are strong, but not overly so. It has all of the classic flavors I associate with delicious blue cheese, along with a creamy texture.

Point Reyes Bay Blue — a firmer, crumbly cheese with deep blue-green veins and a darker rind. While the blue flavor is relatively mild, this cheese has a strong earthy flavor that makes it very distinct from the Original Blue. A bit more of an acquired taste.

Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk — a slightly soft, triple cream cheese with a distinctive rose-orange colored rind. The aromas and flavors are pungent (stinky is a fair description) and very distinctive. Our experience with this cheese is that it is milder and firmer when young and becomes gooey and very pungent as it ages. This piece of Red Hawk was young, thus relatively mild in flavor, but you must like stinky cheese to enjoy it. We do and we did.

Zoe’s Meats Uncured Salami — black pepper and garlic flavors combine with the fatty goodness of pork. Pretty straight forward, no preservatives. Very tasty.

The Pairing

Spot on. Both the Hyland Estates Riesling and Hyland Estates Gewürztraminer were delicious with the cheeses. I’m a fan of pairing white wines with strong flavored cheeses. There are no grippy tannins or heavy fruit flavors to compete with the strong, sometimes earthy, flavors of the cheese. Nice acidity in a white wine, as is present in both of these Hyland Estates wines, also cuts through the fat in the cheese leaving your palate clean and ready to taste another bite of cheese.

Either of these wines would be lovely partners for hors d’oeuvres, salads, creamy pasta dishes, pesto pizza, chicken or fish. In addition to interesting, complex flavors and great acidity, versatility is another quality I appreciate in well-made white wine. Both of these wines have all of those qualities.

Pinot Noir may be the undisputed star of the Willamette Valley, but these two white wines are excellent examples of why you should not discount Riesling and Gewürztraminer from the Willamette Valley. Hyland Estates, in addition to producing several delicious Pinot Noirs, makes a lively Chardonnay as well, demonstrating that there is much to like from this historic McMinnville AVA vineyard.

Thank you, April, for sending these two wines our way. We were favorably impressed with the range of Pinot Noir we tasted from both Hyland Estates and Soléna Estate (in addition to flavorful Pinot Gris and Chardonnay) during that tasting in Corning, N.Y. We were happy to have a second taste of the 2013 Hyland Estates Riesling and 2013 Hyland Estates Gewürztraminer.

Cheers!