Rollin Soles is a familiar name in the Oregon wine industry. He is a pioneering winemaker with global knowledge of the craft, co-founder of Oregon sparkling wine trailblazer Argyle and investor in the Radiant Sparkling Wine Company, the nation’s first mobile méthode champenoise production line (led by former Arygle assistant winemaker Andrew Davis). Not that he needs more credentials, but Soles’ wines also have been listed in Wine Spectator‘s Top 100 Wines of the World 12 different times. The man knows Oregon wine and Oregon wine knows this man.
As of the last decade, Soles and his wife and business partner, Corby Stonebraker Soles, have been handcrafting small lot Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays from the Chehalem Mountains under the tag of ROCO Winery. Commencing with a hillside vineyard of Pinot Noir in 2001 and 100 cases produced in 2003, ROCO added its production winery in 2009 and tasting room in 2012. One year later, Soles left Argyle to commit to ROCO full-time.
Intrigued by a number of international winemaking methods, Soles’ 2013 The Stalker Pinot Noir shows his work is far from done in Northwest wine innovation. He found inspiration in the use of grape stalks to flavor wines and the technique of air-drying whole clusters in Valpolicella, Italy, then put his own spin on the process. Soles keeps to whole berry fermentation (the grapes stay in cold storage) while he dries out his stalks with fresh air flow sans mold—the rest of the details are vague as Soles’ keeps the procedure to himself but promises “spice-laced tannin… without the ‘greenness’ of the fresh stalks.” After fermentation, the wine is aged in a combination of new to three-year-old French oak barrels for a minimum of 18 months. This all leads to a truly unique Pinot Noir that hovers somewhere over herbal and savory, identifying with that umami sensation with a tone akin to soy and raspberry, brambly berry fruit, light cola and tobacco. Sweet tannin and lip-tingling acid complete this complex and layered young wine.
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