Main varieties: highly variegated field blends; Pinot Noir

Hood River Valley, Oregon

"Cellar-wise, simplicity reigns: when the given plot is harvested – all varieties together – the whole grapes are gently foot-stomped, fed into a big basket press and pressed directly into old neutral oak barrels of different sizes (for the whites). For rosés and reds, the grapes are left alone as whole clusters for up to two weeks, then gently stomped and left on skins for between a couple of days to as long as 70 depending on the wine, and then pressed on an old ratchet press. The wines ferment quite slowly, with indigenous yeasts only; some of them, named “Spring Ephemeral”, are bottled after a couple of months, but many wines (even the ones from the same plot and grapes, further adding to the diversity of Hiyu’s range) receive an elevage that’s much longer, lasting up to 10 years. Once done, the wines are bottled by hand, using gravity and 5ppm of SO2, unfined, unfiltered and ready to reach their lucky few customers. There are usually only 2-3 barrels of each wine, so we’re quite happy to be able to get our hands on a couple of them and share the Hiyu abundance with the East Coast lovers of esoteric wines from special places!"