Explore Oregon Wines: Wineries | Varietals | AVAs | Cellar 503 Selections
Analemma Wines NV Mosier Hills Blanco
Finding a unique spot on the Earth
Bolt a camera to a post outside. Every day at the exact same time, take a photo of the position of the sun. After a year, layer the photos – and you’ll see the analemma. The sun will have traced a figure-eight shape in the sky. Why? The math is complex, but it has to do with the tilt of the Earth and the elliptical path we take around the sun.
To winemakers Steve Thompson and Kris Fade, the analemma is a symbol that reflects their focus on place. After all, every place on Earth has its own unique analemma – a kind of place-based fingerprint.
Having wandered as far afield as New Zealand to make wine before coming home to Oregon, Steve and Kris often say that they’re inspired by the power of wine to showcase the land, the water, and the climate in each site they farm.
Their wines come from the historic Atavus and Oak Ridge Vineyards as well as their own estate vineyard, Mosier Hills, planted at one of the highest elevation sites in the Columbia Gorge.
Cellar 503 Tasting Notes
Analemma Wines, Mosier, Oregon
NV Mosier Hills Blanco
At Analemma, they’re focused on growing grapes that showcase the specific place on earth where they’re grown. And the Spanish varietal Godello (“go-dey-yo”) is known for expressing the mineral structure of the soils it’s grown in.
Nearly extinct in Spain, Godello was rescued in the 1970s by winemakers committed to protecting native Spanish grapes and is now the second-most popular white wine grape in Spain. Godello found its way to the United States in 2012 in the Sonoma Valley, and now thanks to Analemma, it’s come to the east end of the Columbia Gorge AVA.
This wine is a non-vintage 2018 and 2019 blend of 85% Godello, 10% Albariño, and 5% Viognier. It lives somewhere between Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc with strong minerality and balanced acid, alongside flavors of briny grapefruit and green apple, and rounded, textural notes from aging on lees in large-format oak barrels and concrete egg.
Pull it from the fridge when you start thinking about dinner (to enjoy at about 45°). Pair it with seafood; particularly with lime and cilantro (fish tacos!) — or one of my favorite dishes, the Burrito Del Mar with shrimp and white wine cream sauce at Portland’s Tamale Boy.
A Cellar 503 selection in June 2022, Columbia Gorge Columbia Gorge | Albariño, Godello, Viognier
