Event

Small World Wine Company's
Spindrift
Pinot Noir  
2016
Willamette Valley, Orgeon 
100% Pinot Noir

You may remember we featured the 2015 vintage of this bottling last August only to sellout all that came to Virginia!  

The 2016 vintage is even better, here is what Parker says.

"The 2015s and 2016s are both opulent vintages, finely textured and richly fruited. However, the best 2016's have something I rarely experience: layers of fruit, earth, spice and minerality. The greatest wines of this vintage are elegant and pure, a notch up from 2015.” The Wine Advocate


90 Points - The Prince of Pinot

“Moderately light garnet color in the glass. I was drawn into the glass in this wine by the aromas of cherry, strawberry, rose petal, and sandalwood.
Light to mid weight in style, with a generous black cherry core of fruit that shows good vigor and intensity. A solid wine with a delightful cherry-embossed finish.
Sourced from seven small vineyards in the Willamette Valley, all dry farmed and many over 15 years of age. Clones are Pommard, Wädenswil, 115, 777 and 667.
Aged in French oak barrels for over 10 months.
I was impressed with the 2015 vintage wines submitted for review in the past and even more impressed with the 2016 vintage wines currently reviewed.
These wines have the handprint of an experienced grower and winemaker.
The wines also represent extremely good value, especially since I consider them equal in quality to any wines currently being produced in the Northern Willamette Valley." – Rusty Gaffney

Our Thoughts.........

A nose of fresh berry fruit and hints of  spice introduce the wine – along with an undercurrent of forest floor.
Immediately approachable, with commingled cranberry, ripe blackberry, raspberry, with sweet and balanced fruit acidity, deep, smooth tannins, and a long finish of berries laced with a whisper of white pepper. 

Our Regular Price $24.99
Special Sale Price 
Only $20.00 a bottle

$102.00 for six! ($17.00)

Call us to order

703-668-WINE(9463) 

Matt Compton’s 20 Oregon Wine Harvests....

“I came to Oregon’s wine industry twenty years ago not knowing what Pinot Noir was, with a drive to learn and a love of farming. I immersed myself in growing the grapes, which led to learning to make the wine. I am still learning. It is an ongoing process, constantly discovering new things and fine-tuning what I’ve learned.”

That’s how self starter Matt Compton, who calls himself an “agrarian at heart” describes his experience growing grapes and making wine over the last two decades. Matt is no slouch.
You might call him one of the hardest working men in Oregon’s wine industry – building a thriving business based on his love for farming and a heck of a lot of hard work.

A Kid with the Farming “Bug”
Matt and his siblings are the eighth generation of a family deeply rooted in west central New Jersey.
Born in 1973, his family had an electrical contracting business and appliance store.
But Matt’s father wanted to farm, and in 1980 they moved west to Wisconsin’s dairy country, where they farmed dairy cows.
Matt caught the farming bug in Wisconsin, driving a tractor and baling hay at ten years old.
 
“In Wisconsin, all of us got the bug for farming work. I loved tractor work, but not so much the animals. You can’t get away from the farm milking twice a day.”
The Compton family lived through difficult times in the ‘80s. The dairy industry took a big hit and they lost their farm. Matt’s father worked for other farms, and eventually the family moved back to New Jersey.
Matt’s focus in high school was sports—he participated in football, wrestling and Lacrosse—before graduating from high school in 1992. He played football in college for one year.
He studied horticulture in college in 1993, looked for land to farm for a time, then took a series of jobs not related to agriculture.
The fall of 1995 was a turning point for Matt. He moved to Oregon.
 
The Big Move
In the summer of 1994, Matt took a trip around the country. His friend was going to be starting graduate school at Oregon State University (OSU) in Corvallis, so Matt decided to check it out.
Leaving his camping spot in Newport, he visited campus on “a typical May day, a little moist, looking really green, a little overcast.” He was hooked. 
Returning to the East Coast, Matt decided to move to Corvallis where his friend was starting graduate school. He “came out with nothing, sat down with his friend John Luna, and said he needed a job.” 
John sent him to Scott Robbins, a researcher at OSU.
Scott suggested that if he became a student he could get a job as a student worker.
Matt signed up for school and started working for Scott and other researchers. 
Scott and Matt connected on the long drives from Corvallis to Woodhall, OSU’s experimental vineyard outside Alpine.
On the trips, Scott would talk about the winemaking process and give Matt a one on one course, followed up by the work they would perform after arriving at the vineyard.
Scott was Matt’s first mentor in the wine industry.
In the winter of 1995, Matt helped Scott plant an apple orchard for cider at the OSU’s Lewis Brown research facility and Scott taught him to graft vines at Woodhall Vineyard.
 
Working at Woodhall, Matt got to know Chris Heider, (720 Cellars) then assistant vineyard manager at Woodhall.
Chris decided to finish his graduate studies and Scott Robbins offered Matt the assistant vineyard manager job.
Matt says, “I got the job because I knew how to farm, not because I knew grapes.” 
Matt’s student status transitioned into a regular job, and in 1996 Matt made his first wine as a home winemaker.
For several years, Matt continued to manage Woodhall, make wine, and help out at Lewis Brown Farm, an OSU experimental facility.