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Will Hamilton has been helping craft fine wine in the Willamette Valley since the 2005 vintage when he moved from the DC area to explore his intrigue for Oregon and the production side of wine. It was initially through restaurant work in high school and college that the interest for wine culture emerged, and after his first post college year as a wine importer’s sales person and then a cycling messenger in our Nation’s Capital, he found himself in the cellar at Erath Winery in Dundee for his first harvest.
During spells with Laurent Montalieu’s NW Wine Company (’06-’11), Evening Land Vineyards (’11 and ’12), and Ken Pahlow and Erica Landon’s Walter Scott Wines (’13-’17), Will had the opportunity to vinify fruit from more than 25 vineyards in the Eola-Amity Hills, and more than 100 total in the Willamette Valley, Umpqua Valley, Southern Oregon, and Eastern Washington. Between 2011 and 2018, Will served roles in the service side of the industry, offering expertise in a variety of technical sales for enological and winery purposes, while carving enough time out to personally produce the Violin range, which was begun in the 2013 vintage, working out of the Walter Scott Winery on the West side of Justice Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills.
Achieving balance, distinction and elegance remains the overall goal with both Pinot noir and Chardonnay. Our vineyard partners share our dedication to sustainable wine-growing, and we are fortunate to exclusively dry farm our sites. The scale of our vineyards, delicacy of our varieties, and fickle nature of our climate necessitate the use of human labor for all pruning and most foliar management, and we practice mechanical techniques for in-row cultivation. Building a healthy farm is at the core of what our partnerships hope to achieve, as we believe it will produce the healthiest and most expressive grapes, fermentations and resulting wines.
The retention of natural acidity in grapes is the key factor in determining ripeness and the correct moment to begin the winemaking process. Style is most prominently influenced by this decision: the decision of what constitutes “ripe”. We have grown to prefer the almost perfectly ripe pick, and rely on the tension this edginess brings to balance our beautiful and opulent array of Willamette Valley fruit and savory characters. We also celebrate the variation and reflection of the growing season within the wines we produce.
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