Drumroll, Please: Our Wines Are Rated!

Plus a shout-out to the immigrant workers who harvest our grapes in the vineyard.

Wine has been produced for about 8,000 years (the wheel is only 5,500 years old), and in that period all vintners have always pronounced their own wines to be superb. In self-assessments, wines (like children) are all above average.

So that’s why we need wine ratings from a highly credible and completely independent source. We are proud of our wines and of the raves they’ve earned, but we still had butterflies as we awaited ratings from Wine Enthusiast, one of the world’s foremost raters of wine

We’re thrilled with the results. Our 2022 Pinot Noir earned a 93 and was described as “dazzling” and named a “Cellar Selection”!

Our 2022 Chardonnay also earned a 93 and was named “Editor’s Choice”!

Rosé doesn’t tend to rank as highly, so we were thrilled that our 2023 Rosé from Pinot Noir earned a 90, with a review that began with “Wow”!

A special shout-out to Jessica Dunnam and Morgan Garay of Results Partners, the vineyard management company that helps us treat the grape vines with TLC. And huge thanks to Adam Campbell, the Elk Cove winemaker and alchemist (and fellow Yamhill Carlton High School graduate with Nick) who turned the grapes into a drink for the gods.

We hope you’ll try the wines and find them as delectable as Wine Enthusiast did. Kristof Wine club shipments go out later this month but you can still join the Kristof Wine Club and participate in a Conversation Salon in November. Or you can sample wines at the tasting room at The Studio in Carlton, Oregon (with other great wines, too!). We ship both wine and cider nationwide from our Kristof Farms website.

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It’s harvest time at Kristof Farms! Here are Nick and Sheryl as the Pinot Noir grapes were being picked.

During harvest season, we’re repeatedly testing the grapes to make sure they were properly ripened, while also wary of any expected rainfall. Our final picking finished just before a light rain started. We don’t want it raining while we’re picking grapes because that can dilute the grape juice.

The amazing grape pickers fan out through the vineyard rows carrying two buckets and then trimming off grape clusters they toss into their buckets. They dump their buckets of Pinot Noir grapes into the bins:

As you see, many of the pickers are women — who certainly hold up half the sky — and both the men and women astound us with their efficiency, speed and stamina. The buckets are heavy, but they are quick and nimble as they move through the rows, clipping grape clusters into buckets.

We’re incredibly grateful for their paired intensity and care. Notice that they intentionally do not pick upper clusters, for those are secondary and tertiary clusters that won’t make the finest wine. (For the same reason, we thin the grapes each summer: The result is a smaller harvest but better wine.) The pickers make more than 2.5X the minimum wage in Oregon but it’s exhausting work, and we’re very thankful for them. About three-quarters are from Mexico and one-quarter from Guatemala, and they’re a reminder of how much our economy relies on immigrant labor. Toast them next time you have a glass of Pinot Noir in your hand. We owe them!

Of course, Sheryl did lend a hand:

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In two years’ time, we hope to be telling you about the scoring that our 2024 vintage is winning from Wine Enthusiast. In the meantime, you can take delight in our 2022 “dazzling” Pinot Noir and other wines and ciders on KristofFarms.com or at The Studio tasting room in Carlton, OR.

Warmest wishes from Kristof Farms, and our now bare vines send their love as well.