ROCO’s Sparkling Honored as top wine of 2024!
Did you know that Wine Enthusiast Magazine awarded a Willamette Valley sparkling wine as the #1 wine in the world for 2024? ROCO Winery’s 2013 Brut Sparkling award was the first time a Willamette Valley winery captured the top spot in the magazine’s history of choosing their 100 best wines of the year. According to Michael Alberty, writer-at-large for Wine Enthusiast:
This is easily one of the best sparkling wines I had in 2023. After resting for 10 years on its lees before disgorgement, the wine has developed rich aromas of yellow apples, ripe Oregon white truffles and melted Gruyère cheese. This is a full-bodied wine where poached pear and toasted hazelnut flavors rule the rich palate.
ROCO Winery’s founder Rollin Soles is an icon of the Valley. He was co-founder and original winemaker at Argyle Winery in 1987 and put Oregon on the sparkling wine map. Investors included the Bollinger group and Lion Nathan USA (now Distinguished Vineyards & Wine Partners). Yearning for his own winery free from the influence of investors, Rollin and his wife Corby Stonebraker-Soles crushed their first sparkling wine vintage in 2003 for their own project: ROCO (ROllin and COrby). In 2013 he stepped down as winemaker and general manager at Argyle to concentrate full time at ROCO. It is his 2013 wine, which Soles decided to stash away for 10 years, that is honored today. Rumor has it he is holding some back to release in another 5 years. If you missed the 2013, the 2014 vintage has been released and is supposed to be amazing as well.
Going back to Michael Alberty’s description of ROCO’s wine: What is delayed disgorgement? What does “on the lees” mean?
Lees are what wine producers call the sediment of dead yeast cells left behind once the live yeast cells eat up all the sugars found in grape juice and create ethanol (the alcohol that we all drink and love) and carbon dioxide, the essence of fermentation. In French champagne method sparkling wine the CO2 is captured in the bottle to create the effervescent bubbles. The time wine spends “on the lees”, aka soaking in dead yeast cells, creates degrees of bready, briochy, toasty notes prized in sparkling wines. Sparkling wines can spend a week, a month, a year or 10 years-plus “on the lees” depending on the winemaker and price point for the finished wine.
Disgorgement, on the other hand, is the process by which dead yeast cells are separated from the wine to create a finished sparkling wine that is crystal clear. Delayed disgorgement is simply a term that indicates the wine was chosen to spend extra time (10 years) in contact with the lees to increase the yeasty flavor component prized by sparkling wine lovers.
More Sparkling Wineries!
Don’t think the Willamette Valley only has one world-renowned sparkling winery. There are three more Oregon sparkling wines on Wine Enthusiast’s top 100 list:
Wine # 32 is Cho Wines’ 2018 Blanc de Noirs Sparkling Pinot Noir
Wine # 36 is Corollary’s 2019 X-Omni Blanc de Blancs Sparkling Chardonnay
Wine # 40 is Domaine Serene’s 2015 Vintage Brut Sparkling chardonnay/pinot noir blend
All four are sparkling wines made from the classic Pinot Noir/Chardonnay grapes essential to French champagnes. If you are a fan of champagne (remember that only sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France can carry this label), consider buying Willamette Valley sparkling wines made in “methode champenoise” aka the double fermentation process used by French champagne houses like Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot.
If you don’t know Cho Wines from my last blog post about Willamette Valley innovators, please check it out and follow them on instagram! Lois and David Cho have taken the Valley by storm with an amazing social media presence as well as their trailblazing off the net. They are founders of the Oregon AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) food & wine fest in addition to building a new tasting room and production facility overlooking their newly planted vineyard on the northern border of the Chehalem Mountains.
Why Sparkling? Why not!
If you are reading this far, I suspect you are, like me, a sparkling wine superfan. I know I can find a sparkling wine for any occasion, any meal, or by itself. For example I love Rex Hill’s La Vie En Rosé sparkling with Oregon coast crab cakes or salmon, Dominio IV’s Riddle Me This with potato chips (add some sour cream and caviar?) or ROCO’s RMS Red Brut with eggplant parm or lasagna as part of your holiday dinner table. Need to pair a wine with a Christmas ham? Try Monksgate’s Fizzy Sparkling Dry Riesling.
Willamette Valley wineries are making some of the best sparkling wines in the world. Besides the four that landed on the top 100 list, we have many other wineries making excellent sparkling wines, some using classic champagne grapes, others experimenting with non-traditional varietals like riesling and tempranillo.
The Takeaway
I am lucky to be close to so many sparkling wineries to try and visit with friends. Our valley is a great destination to expand your knowledge of sparkling wines. I will be happy to guide you to the ones listed above or to more of my personal hidden gem favorites. Start planning your 2025 Willamette Valley vacation now and save 10% off your Triangle Wine Country Tour if you mention you read this blog post! In the words of Matt Kettmann of Wine Enthusiast Magazine:
So please use this as a reference for buying wines, of course, but also as a map to plot your next wine country adventure . Because when any winery achieves this recognition, you can be confident that their neighbors are approaching similarly brilliant results through the same relentless passion and dedication.
Cheers and Happy Sparkling Holidays!
Michele
