We have been talking with Leah Jørgensen of Leah Jørgensen Cellars about her inspirations as well as Southern Oregon.  We begin with her 2017 Sauvignon Blanc.  We’ve discussed how her love of the wines from the Loire Valley in France influences her wines as well as the depth of history in the soils of Southern Oregon.  Now we are finally putting glass to lips and tasting some of her wines.

Leah Jørgensen Cellars 2017 Sauvignon Blanc

Leah Jørgensen Cellars 2017 Sauvignon Blanc

“This is our Sauvignon Blanc from Rogue Valley.  It comes from the Crater View Vineyard that I was mentioning.  Hence we gave her a little makeover (she is a mermaid on the bottle) to inspire the fish and I think she has an oyster shell right there.

So actually, I wanted to make white wines that go with shellfish.  We are here in Oregon right, we have incredible oyster beds, crab.  My cousins own the fisherman’s market in Eugene.  They are fishermen have fishing boats that go up to Alaska, that’s my Nordic heritage coming through. 

This wine has got all kinds of bright acidity and gooseberry.  It’s not anything like a California Sauvignon Blanc and it’s nothing like a New Zealand, it’s much more along the lines of…sometimes it even gets a “gunflintiness”, so similar to a Pouilly-Fumé.  Definitely the Loire inspired Sauvignon Blancs.  We use stainless steel and Acacia barrels.”

Acacia Barrels?

“So a lot of the young guns in the Loire Valley have been moving to Acacia barrels for their whites; Chenin blanc, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc.  And the reason for that is that if you were to smell an oak barrel versus an acacia barrel, we know what oak is right, it gives that vanilla and caramel and all those wonderful notes coconut too, but if you smell an acacia barrel it’s much more herbal and floral, elderberry flower, gardenia, resin like from a fir tree, so it’s just much more interesting.  The grapes like Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc really lifts those herbal-floral notes and it makes a quite pretty difference than using oak. “

This wine was so different from other Sauvignon Blancs from California or New Zealand.  It’s softer on the nose, but with great acidity.  It’s clean and you get minerals off of it.

“It’s that wonderful thing about putting your nose in a wine glass and getting all these amazing things and then it’s all subjective, because it all depends on things that I have smelled or that I can imagine smelling.”

“And your biochemistry! We are biochemically individual people, so we will experience wine all so differently.  That’s why I never really take reviews, you kind of take it as a grain of salt that it should be something experienced Individually.”