Wines

Our Winemaking Ethos

Of greatest importance is that a Martin Woods wine promotes the notions of quiet power, nuanced complexity, and ethereal beauty. Achieving these rare qualities requires great terroir, observant farming, precise harvest timing and meticulous care in the cellar.

Much of our winemaking is focused on achieving balanced texture in the wines, so that they seemingly hold a delicate tension of opposites, a delightful push-pull of qualities — fruit, acidity, tannin. The texture may feel crystalline in some wines, more silken in others, but the finish must always be resonant and refreshing, an invitation to return for more. Of course we also want to achieve soulful aromatic lift, a perfume that is on the one hand varietally pure and clean, while on the other hand complex and sometimes even mysterious.

Great vineyards have a singular voice, which is never immediately apparent in the beginning. Our job is to listen and to discover the vineyard’s innate voice and then determine how we can support and promote that distinct voice, rather than attempting to give the wine our voice. We have an uncompromising approach to determining ideal ripeness and 'nailing the pick’, it is something we talk about frequently, because honest wine is a clear translation of the qualities possessed by the grape on the very morning it was picked.

While we certainly run basic lab analyses, for us the determination of harvest timing is primarily a matter of taste, sensory perception, historical experience and learned instinct. At harvest we are constantly touring our vineyards to observe the trajectory of ripening. We wait patiently until the moment is just right, then spring into action. In the Willamette Valley, this frequently means that we hang fruit through unpredictable, inclement weather, risking all for the potential of something great.

We are dedicated students to the process and the art of winemaking. We hope our work improves little by little each vintage, leading to ever more compelling wines. We continually question our methods and run experiments to test alternatives.

These are some core principles that characterize our cellar work at Martin Woods:

Small lot winemaking. Highly attentive, not highly intrusive.
Patient elevage. Our wines are not rushed into bottle. Balance takes time.
Judicious (minimal) use of sulfur.
Limited use of new oak barrels. The goal is to complement and to highlight, not dominate, the wine
Bottling without Fining to preserve textural and aromatic complexity
Use of Diam cork closures and wax finishing for purity, consistency and longevity of aging

— Evan Martin, Founder & Winemaker