2021 Cuvee Constance

The Constance Cuvee debutes with this 2021 vintage. This wine combines small amounts of juice from several of our other pinots, creating a unique and powerful blend unlike any other wine produced by Lenne Estate.

• On the nose: Summer melon, ripe strawberry, boysenberry, walnut, oak.
• In the mouth: Dense, jammy, brambly, velvety, ripe blackberry, dark chocolate, mocha, vanilla.

A Unique Blend

This wine was made by taking small amounts of the final blends (from the steel tanks before bottling) of seven of our other 2021 pinot noirs. It aged in 14% new oak, and by volume is:

• 14.29% Eleanor's 114 Dijon clone
• 14.29% Jill's 115 Dijon clone
• 14.29% Karen's Pommard clone
• 14.29% Kill Hill
• 14.29% South Slope select
• 21.43% Lenné Estate
• 7.14% LeNez pinot noir

History

In 2022 Lenne's founder, Steve Lutz, decided to sell the vineyard, but (at the time) not the brand. The initial plan was to create a brand new brand, using the fruit from the Lenné vineyard, with an inaugural vintage of 2022. To add some variety to the initial offering, our new owner Eugene Labunsky asked the outgoing winemaker Steve Lutz to craft this special blend, creating a wine he'd never before made.

Steve ultimately decided to sell off the Lenne brand as well as the vineyard, so we are still called Lenne, and have all the great back catalog of older Lenne wines as well as the 2022 and newer vintages. This wine is still a one of a kind. It was bottled in October 2022 with all the other Lenne 2021 wines, and stored as a "shiner" until May 2024, when it was labeled with the new logo and released at the same time as our 2022 pinots.

Vintage Notes

The 2021 growing season was long and hot, with a larger than average fruit set that paired beautifully with the lengthy ripening season. We saw a record heat bubble in late June with temps over 114 degrees! Thankfully that happened in June and not August, and the tiny grapes were not impacted by the brief event. The rest of the summer was hot, but not excessively, and we saw our typical cooling in September, allowing for longer hang time. On the whole it was one of the best vintages in the history of the Willamette Valley.

Our 2021 pinots are bold and fruit-forward, but even young, they show excellent balance with tannic structure and acidity on the finish. These wines drink exceptionally well even young, but as with all Lenne pinots, we recommend at least four years cellar time.