One of the things that gets discussed a lot with wine is a concept called terroir. What this basically means is the impact of where and how something was grown on the taste and character of a wine. A chardonnay grape grown in the Napa Valley will taste different from one grown in the Loire Valley, which will taste different from one in Chile. All the wine for these chardonnays could be from the very same grape, but the soil, climate, elevation, and growing season all impact the way in which that grape will taste when made into a wine.

In some rare places, the terroir can actually vary quite considerably within a single vineyard. In Oregon, not only do some vineyards have noticeable soil differences within the same vineyard, they also have micro-climates where the grapes are exposed to significantly different levels of sunlight and heat. Youngberg Hill Vineyards in McMinnville is an excellent example of a winery with significant differences in terroir within a single vineyard. While Youngberg Hill isn’t the only Northwest winery to have varying terroir, winemaker Wayne Bailey does an exceptional job of accentuating the differences in his wine.

2008 is considered to be a very good year for Oregon Pinot Noir, and Youngberg Hill released a pair of Pinots from their vineyard: Jordan and Natasha. Sipping these two wines side-by-side is a textbook case for terroir.

With both these wines, you experience some of the same flavors. There’s interplay with blackberry, earthiness, and minerality, but each comes at this from a different way.

Jordan: A riff on earthiness, there’s a bit of minerality in the nose, but it’s there to support the more earthy notes. The taste is lush and deep, dark fruit—again, we’re looking at ripe blackberry flavors. Jordan is a more fruit-forward wine, but it balances the fruit and earth notes well. There’s less astringency and fewer tannins than Natasha, and it comes across as a much easier wine. Perhaps, also, it’s much more ready to drink now than Natasha.

Natasha: More a riff on minerality, there aren’t the earthy notes that are found in Jordan. Instead, they are replaced by a clear minerality both on the nose and on the palate. The blackberry fruit notes in Natasha are not as lush as Jordan and they much more tannic. Natasha may benefit from additional aging, where the tannins may mellow, leading to some wonderful balance and complexity.

It’s fascinating to taste such clear difference in wine from the same varietal, vintage, and vineyard (and a fairly small one at that). With Jordan and Natasha, Wayne Bailey has created a thesis on terroir that exemplifies the unique growing conditions that surround Youngberg Hill Vineyard.