"Archery Summit has established itself as the Rolls-Royce of Oregon Pinot Noir" - Harvey Steiman, Wine Spectator, June 15 2003

Great winemaking begins in the vineyard, and this old-world mantra has been Archery Summit’s guidepost from the very beginning. Because we focus exclusively on estate vineyards, we control our destiny by constantly searching for the best possible combination of plant, soil and cultivation. With only five vineyards and just over 115 acres to farm, Archery Summit takes a personal, hands-on approach that one might even call intimate because we know our vines so well. Every crew is dedicated to a single vineyard, and many of us have been here for more than a decade. For instance, Moises Sotelo, a foreman who planted Archery Summit Estate in 1994, still attends to those vines.

We also use hands-on cultivation and natural pest-control, going so far as to find beneficial insects on leaves in caneberry fields and bring them back to our vineyards. Dijon clones are site-selected and blended with existing mature rootstock. Densely planted vertically trellised vines are forced to compete, producing smaller berries with fewer, more concentrated clusters. Leaves are hand-thinned to ensure maximum sunlight reaches the grapes, clusters are sacrificed to further reduce yields, and, unlike most vineyards where fruit grows chest-high for ease of harvest, we train ours closer to the nutrient producing rootstock.

Of course, all of this requires more care from bud break to harvest, but we know that there are no shortcuts to quality.