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Cooper Ridge Vineyard 2016 Dry Riesling
Come for the wine, stay for the view
Cooper Ridge is one of those wineries that you’ve never heard of – but you feel like you should have!
With stunning views of the entire Umpqua valley, seven varietals planted on their estate vineyard, great food, and live music, they see over 600 people a week in their tasting room! Wow!
Robin and Lesa Ray got into the wine business backwards. After a successful career as property developers in eastern Oregon, they wanted to move to the west side of the state. They found their dream property, with river access, on the outskirts of Roseburg. But it was 25 acres – what would they do with all that land?
They had always loved wine and enjoyed traveling in France through wine country so why not plant grapes and see what happens?
Well, they planted vines in 2009, produced their first vintage in 2012, and opened a tasting room in 2015. Today, they sell almost all of their 3400 cases to their own wine club.
Cellar 503 Tasting Notes
Cooper Ridge Vineyard, Roseburg, Oregon
2016 Dry Riesling
Tell a friend that you’re opening a Riesling, and odds are good that they’ll turn up their nose. Here’s what I say: You gotta try it before you knock it. Oregon has become a place where you’ll find dry, bright Rieslings that bear no resemblance to the bottom-shelf syrupy stuff.
As Wine Enthusiast’s Paul Gregutt put it, “Oregon’s many Riesling specialists offer more diversity, value and quality than anywhere on the West Coast.”
And this Cooper Ridge edition is no exception. It is a gorgeously acidic wine that pulls out the natural flavors of the Riesling grape: crisp and dry with wonderful aromatics of grapefruit, apple and lime. This wine was fermented in stainless steel, neutral oak, and concrete egg – the latter giving it a distinct minerality to balance the acid.
A Cellar 503 selection in August 2019, Umpqua Valley AVA Umpqua Valley | Riesling
