Domaine Drouhin estate hilltop view
— — a Burgundy hill that the Pacific reached.
Not only on a wall.
“A French winemaker's hilltop on the west side of the Dundee Hills, planted by the Drouhin family of Burgundy in the late 1980s. From the tasting room the view drops across rows of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay toward Mount Hood. Some afternoons the valley fog stays in below the hill and the rows float above it.
Domaine Drouhin estate hilltop view, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Domaine Drouhin sits high in the Dundee Hills American Viticultural Area, about 30 miles southwest of Portland near Dayton, Oregon. The estate covers roughly 225 acres planted to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, established in 1987 by Robert Drouhin of Maison Joseph Drouhin in Beaune, Burgundy. His daughter Véronique Drouhin-Boss has been winemaker from the first vintage. The vineyards are planted on Jory soil, the red volcanic clay that defines the Dundee Hills, on slopes facing east and southeast toward Mount Hood and the Cascades.
Jory is the soil. A deep red basaltic clay, formed when ancient Columbia River basalt weathered slowly under millions of years of rain, named Oregon's state soil in 2011. It drains well, holds heat, and forces vines to root deep. Pinot Noir grown on Jory tends to read brighter and more acidic than the same grape on the sedimentary soils of the neighbouring Eola-Amity Hills. The same rock that built the hill paves the long driveway up to the tasting room.
The tasting room is open by reservation through the week, and walk-ins are accepted on slower afternoons. The estate runs flights of estate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay; library and reserve flights are bookable in advance. The drive up Breyman Orchards Road climbs roughly 600 feet from the valley floor, with the last quarter mile turning to gravel. The hilltop deck, open to ticketed visitors only, faces east across the planted slopes. Mount Hood is visible on clear days; the valley fog often settles below the hillline by mid-morning.