the Rizzo winery NOTEBOOK
At Rizzo, we want to help our valued customers learn about how many hands this bottle went through before reaching their glass - or why wine has been the chosen beverage for thousands of years throughout history. We wanted to share the tools that enable our wine lovers to feel confident about discussing the bottle of Rizzo they are drinking with friends.
We created the Notebook to help get you there and to pass on our wealth of knowledge to you.
Viognier In The Spring
Viognier is the perfect wine for spring sipping as the sunshine peaks out from between the clouds. Rizzo's Viognier is now on our Spring Flight and retails for $20.
Viognier is the perfect in between of Chardonnay, where it has a similar full and lush body, and Riesling, where it contains similar aromatics, like peach, pear, and violet. The Willamette Valley had many plantings of these two grape varieties already, and at Rizzo, we like to be a little different.
Viognier, a white grape originating from France’s warm Rhône Valley, is best known for being the only grape permitted in Condrieu. If you know the Willamette Valley, you’d know that it’s not nearly as warm as the Rhône Valley, but you would also know that this beautiful valley of ours has hundreds of different microclimates. One of which can be found in the tip top of our vineyard, where the sun shines the most, allowing for our 1 acre of Viognier to be bathed in warmth most days in the growing season. Similar to the strong Mistral winds that blow through the Rhône Valley, Rizzo is in the Eola-Amity Hills which is known for the Van Duzer winds that breeze through the Cascade and Coastal Mountain Ranges.
Rizzo’s 2015 Viognier Tasting Notes
Our Viognier is pale-lemon in hue, with aromatic notes of citrus rind, orange blossom and soft hay, which fill the glass. Served best lightly chilled, the fresh acidity and notes of bright green-apple, apricot kernel, and young stone-fruit balance invitingly with warm notes of vanilla and honeyed hazelnut.
Pair our Viognier
Pair our Viognier with picnics in the park: add a mild cheddar or a honey goat cheese, an herb forward salad, add a sliced granny smith apple to the mix and try to find the flavor notes in the wine!
Pair our Viognier with dinner: complimenting crab cakes as an appetizer followed by a creamy pasta dish.
Pair our Viognier with sunshine: It’s delicious on the porch with friends on a warm summer day. No snacks necessary.
This delicious Viognier retails for $20
If you’re a club member it’s $16 / $15 / $14 depending on your wine club level.
The Holiday Gift Guide Is Here!
Find the perfect gift for all the wine lovers in your life this holiday season! For the Trend Setter, The Extravagant One, Red Wine Lover, and White Wine Lover. Celebrate this holiday season with Rizzo Wines!
Tis the season for shopping for all the people you love! Lucky for you, we’ve got the gift guide you need to give the perfect gift set for all the wine lovers in your life.
For The Trendy One
The New Vintage Bundle
This gift set is perfect for the trend-setter in your life. We just released our 2018 Chardonnay, 2018 Pinot Noir and the fan favorite 2019 Rosé. The 2018 Chardonnay is tropical and bright, while the 2018 Pinot Noir is a classic example of how beautiful Willamette Valley Pinot Noir can truly be. Our 2019 Rosé is what we lovingly call our Winter Rosé, filled with a delicious holiday spice flavor profile that pairs perfectly with a warm fire.
For The White Wine Lover
The White Wine Bundle
Move aside everything you thought you knew about white wine. Each of these wines brings a unique flavor to the party. The 2018 Chardonnay isn’t like your classic oaky, butter bomb of chardonnay. This wine is fleshy, bright, and punchy with tropical fruits that settle into a flavor like a fruity cheesecake. Our 2015 Viognier is made from Viognier grown on our Estate. This wine is dry, but comforting with flavors of apricot, nectarine and some honeyed hazelnut. Even the 2015 Muscat Canelli isn’t what you expect. It’s off-dry, so it does have some subtle sweetness that lends itself to a honey flavor, lychee with white blossoms.
For The Extravagant One
The Luxury Bundle
This is an impressive gift for anyone who enjoys the finer things in life. Two of the most extravagant wines Rizzo Winery has ever made, both of these wines are rich with flavor, and texture. Though the name Cuvee means blend, this wine is made entirely from Cabernet Sauvignon, from two different vineyards. Flavors of coconut soufflé, light vanilla and a depth of blackberry. Our 2012 Petit Verdot is silky and sultry. Both of these wines are made from grapes grown out of ancient ash that settled in Oregon’s Columbia Valley from when Mt. Mazuma exploded and created Crater Lake.
For The Bold & Beautiful
The Bold Red Wine Bundle
All three of these wines are bold, spicy, sultry, and demand attention. Do you have someone in your life like that? If you do, these are the perfect wines for them! Our 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon has a beautiful combination of black cherry, black pepper, and mint that will make your mouth water in delight. It recently won a gold medal at Sip’s Best of Northwest awards. Another gold medal winner is our 2013 Tempranillo, a perfect wine for the Thanksgiving table, a wine with flavors similar to cranberry sauce in the most delicious way. To round off this perfect trio is our 2013 Syrah, a wine with subtle vanilla, spiced walnut and subtle sage.
We have so much more to offer in our Tasting Room! Come visit us every weekend 11-5 PM.
Chardonnay: Zesty & Sharp
Our Tasting Room special of the month is our 2017 Chardonnay! Let us quench your thirst from the crazy summer sun, with a discount on one of our most delicious white wines. Zest and sharp, this citrus-forward Chardonnay is nothing like you’ve ever had before!
Our 2017 Chardonnay is nothing like you’ve ever had before, made entirely from glass, the flavors of oak and cream though classic for Chardonnay are unfound in this one! High in acid, thirst quenching and delicious.
Rizzo’s 2017 Chardonnay
Not your typical Chardonnay, this wine was made entirely in glass, hidden from the light to ensure the potency of flavors would shine. There is an inviting pale lemon hue to remind you of a classic Summer day. On the nose you’ll find a hint of tropical fruit, banana with a cream coating like a candy. You’ll find a sharpness on the nose, inviting you to taste the refreshing fresh squeezed lime juice qualities of the wine’s body. In the glass, you’ll also find granny smith apple, some delicate honeysuckle, and a creamy finish.
Come Visit Us!
Can’t you see yourself here? Sipping glasses of cold chardonnay while you chat with your friends and soak in our country view. We are open for Summer Fridays until August 30th, come start your weekend right on Fridays from 4-7 PM and Saturday & Sunday from 11-4 PM!
Reservations are encouraged, but not required. You can make one here
Originally $20 a bottle
this Chardonnay is our Monthly Tasting Room special
Now Only $16.50
That means if you’re a Platinum Club Member your price is $11.55
Summer Is Here!
Rizzo Winery is celebrating the summer season with a flight to cool you down while you soak in the sun on our patio, and new hours on Friday so you can stay later with your friends and make those summer memories!
To celebrate the season we’ve got a special flight and new hours!
To us, Summer means getting off early and hitting the happy hour! At Rizzo, happy hours are here all summer long on Fridays from 3 to 7 PM. Reservations are encouraged as we have a small space, but they’re not required. We understand that some things are spontaneous, and we hope you spontaneously decide to visit our Estate Tasting Room!
While tasting through our Summer Breeze flight you’ll feel as free as that bird of prey hunting the sky in the photo above. It begins with our bright 2017 Chardonnay, made entirely in glass. This keeps the flavors fresh and authentic to Chardonnay itself. To continue keeping your cool through the flight is our delicious 2015 Viognier made from grapes on our estate! A heavier, creamy mouthfeel with this white wine gives us a different perspective from the Chardonnay before and gives us the best of both worlds. Our 2019 Pinot Noir Rosé is darker than most rosé’s, a little more time with the skins increases the color in the wine, but also the flavor complexity! This wine is perfect if you want to bridge the gap between rosé and red wine, or to convert your red wine loving friend to the rosé side. To finish off the flight we have our 2014 Carménère, a silky and spicy red wine that pairs perfectly with vegetables right off the BBQ!
Our Estate Tasting Room is Open
Friday 3-7 PM, Saturday and Sunday 11-4 PM
Muscat Canelli, Food's Best Friend
Muscat Canelli is a delicious white wine made in an off-dry style. Despite its slight sweetness, this wine is a very versatile wine to pair with many different types of food. From light desserts to salads, even to delicious take-out!
Muscat is often overlooked due to it’s off-dry nature. We’re here to tell you to forget what you’ve heard. This wine should be your go to for any dinner party, picnic at the park, charcuterie night, or take-out thai food.
Muscat Canelli is perhaps one of the most delicious grapes to snack on in the entire Vitis Vinifera species. The only grape I’ve ever had that tastes exactly as the wine does, floral, and bursting with sweet perfume. This fun little grape is also very ancient, one of the grapes that most others can trace their lineage back to.
Muscat is a grape variety with many variants of itself as well. Muscat Canelli in particular is a grape named after the town of Canelli (Città di Canelli) in North-East Italy in the larger winemaking region of Piedmont. Rizzo Winery, of course, has Italian heritage, and this grape also can grow in a cooler region than some of the other Muscat variants, making it a no-brainer to be planted as 1 acre of our peaceful vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills.
A picture from the smoke filled vineyard during the growing season of 2020.
Muscat In The Vineyard
We dry farm our vineyard, meaning we don’t use irrigation. We allow Mother Nature to shower our vineyard with the beautiful Oregon rain, and our soils soak and store the water throughout our growing season. We allow the grapes to grow with minimal intervention and harmful sprays. When we do spray we follow LIVE (Low Impact Viticulture & Enology) principles.
Pair The Wine!
Muscat Canelli pairs incredibly well with picnics. Blue cheese is the first that comes to mind, a blue cheese walnut and pear salad on a warm summer day, or a fancy blue cheese on a baguette topped with a bit of honey, delicious.
Traditionally, off-dry wines pair incredibly well with both their similar flavor profile, something slightly sweet like a fruit tart, cheesecake, or olive oil cake. Also, will pair with complete opposite something spicy like wasabi on sushi, a mild/medium spiced pad thai, or a cashew coconut curry.
For dinner, a poached fish filet with a salsa verde, or a simple lemon pasta with olive oil and red chili flakes.
Rizzo's Spotlight: Viognier
Viognier is one of the most delicious white wines there is, change our minds. Though it’s not often planted in the Willamette Valley, we took a chance and now make a wine that’s filled to the brim with textural intensity and pungent floral and fruit flavors.
It is somewhat unusual to find Viognier vines planted on the slopes of Oregon’s famed Willamette Valley. This is exactly why we planted them, we wanted to challenge our climate and make wines that no one else was. We may be biased, but if you tasted this wine, we’re fairly certain you’d agree that this wine is a drop everything, purchase right now, must-have.
Viognier in the sky
Viognier has its origins, like most other ancient grapes. Originating in present day Croatia and then taken to the Rhône Valley in what is now France during the Roman Empire. The Rhône is where Viognier found it’s light alongside Syrah. Viognier can have trouble ripening which is why we have it planted at the top of our slope, to ensure it gets the maximum amount of sunlight possible.
What is debatably most delicious about Viognier is that in the glass you’ll receive intense floral aromas and flavors like Riesling or Muscat, yet we ferment our Viognier wines completely dry. This grape can also develop really beautiful texture, which gives those Chardonnay drinkers something they’ve been looking for minus the intense flavors of oak and butter. This wine exudes sunshine, and is a perfect pairing for those early days in spring when the sun is out but the weather has a fresh crispness to it.
Viognier on the beach
Rosé For Winter? Groundbreaking.
Forget what you heard about Rosé, delightful in the Summer sure, but have you ever had a Rosé tailored to brighten your spirits during the Winter?
Most people when thinking of Rosé think of the beautiful of shades of pink this wonderful wine comes in, they think of it chilled to perfection and drank in the summer sun. Yes, when bodies of water call out to you, many exercise the “Rosé all day” state of mind. At Rizzo, we did something a little different. We made a Rosé that will invoke that same mindset, with no sunshine involved at all.
Meet the 2019 Pinot Noir Rosé. Made from the dry-farmed Pinot Noir vines that live on our Estate, this Rosé is both fresh and complex. The hue of this wine may be a bit darker than you’re used to, but it’s always in season to dabble with the dark side.
This wine has flavors of black pepper and watermelon, with whispers of strawberry Jell-O on the nose. This wine is bordering Beaujolais-style or a bottle of red wine with the ability to drink well chilled, but it’s that zing of acidity that reminds us that this is indeed a Rosé. Rizzo’s Rosé is perfect for those in-between Winter days, where it’s sunny but blisteringly cold, and pairs perfectly with a crackling fire.
Rizzo's Spotlight: 2011 Estate Pinot Noir
The 2011 Vintage in the Willamette Valley is a Cinderella story of patience, determination, and trust. A beautiful explanation of why some wines need a little extra time (in this case a decade) to show us what they’re truly meant to be.
If you read our last blog post, you’d understand a little better why we love cellaring and aging our wine for you, releasing the wines for sale when we feel they’re truly ready. We cellar our wines with patience and love, so you can skip straight to the fun part, drinking it! There is a unique flavor experience we are able to achieve with this extra time that goes a long way, this is especially the case with our 2011 Estate Pinot Noir.
A candid photo of our 2011 Estate Pinot Noir in the wild
A Cold Vintage Gave Way To Uncertainty
The harvest of 2011 was exceptionally cool in comparison to the years surrounding it. This gave the fruit much more acid development than our palates were used to for Oregon Pinot Noir, resulting in what many classified as a “lean” year. You could find 2011’s dumped, put on sale, and forgotten about. Written off as something unnoteworthy. Something that makes wine age-worthy is a harmony between the acid, fruit, and tannin. Without that harmony, it weighs the scale too far in one direction and won’t create something profound over time. Though many felt like the 2011 vintage was exactly that, the acid outweighing all and tipping the scale in a wholly wrong direction for the typical high-quality wines we were seeing come out of the Willamette Valley, something only a few producers gave in to was trust.
We trusted the fruit that wanted to shine underneath all of the powerful acidity. Those brilliant flavors were there but were currently being overshadowed. Knowing that we made a high-quality wine from the get-go, we wanted to give the 2011 Estate Pinot Noir a fighting chance to show us what it was all about. This meant laying it down to rest for almost a decade.
All of Oregon’s beauty in one photograph, nature in the scenery and Oregon’s bounty in the bottle.
A Decade Of Time Gave Us Decadence
They say patience is a virtue, and when it comes to our 2011 Estate Pinot Noir, they are definitely right. All that time spent in the bottle did not go to waste. Throughout the years the acidity began to settle down and take backstage, while new flavors were being thrust into the spotlight. With an initial aroma of caramelized sugar, like the top of a freshly roasted crème brûlée the warmth that’s developed envelops you. The acid still shows in aromas of ripe cherry. Flavors of raspberries, clove, and rose petals delight the palate. With silky tannins and a delicate acidity on the finish. The depth of flavor in this wine feel like a tale as old as time.
Print this image out and impress your friends with your vintage knowledge as you sip our beautiful wine.
Rizzo's Spotlight: Cabernet Sauvignon!
Rizzo Winery is based in the Eola-Amity Hills, a sub-region of the famed Pinot Noir King: Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Though Pinot Noir is king, winemaker David Rizzo has an affinity for bolder red wines, specifically Cabernet Sauvignon. This grape is what made David want to start creating wine, and in turn, Rizzo Winery was born.
Cabernet Sauvignon is the wine that sparked joy in David Rizzo’s heart, and gave him the “wine bug". That spark is one that many wine lovers know and understand well, as it happens to all of us. David was visiting California in the early 90’s and wine tasting with some friends. Back then, the wine industry was a bit smaller on the West Coast, the fire burning passion and love of wine that exists strong at Rizzo Winery, was alive and well in every single tasting room. As David tasted a beautiful, lush, Cabernet, the one pouring for him was telling him all about what went into the liquid that filled the glass in his hand. As David asked questions about the winemaking practices that went into the wine, a lightbulb went off in his head saying “I can do that” and so it began.
Cabernet Sauvignon, a tale as old as time.
Tasting wine with a spread of the tasting characteristics typical of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Cabernet Sauvignon typically has characteristics (that you’ll see on the board above) of red or black cherries, blackberries, fig, red plums, ripe strawberries, bell pepper, mint, and cedar. Holding the wine above a white tablecloth will help you see the color of the wine, at it’s best.
Celebrate The Seasonal Change
Soak up the last little bit of Summer with our Summer Bruschetta. This delicious treat is a wonderful pairing to our Muscat Canelli. We’ve also included some tasting notes, so you can bring this combo to a picnic and impress all your friends with your wine knowledge and expertise!
It’s still quite warm in Oregon, so we’re holding on to every last drop of summer we can. This recipe for Summer Bruschetta helps us deny that summer is coming to an end. Whip up a batch of our Summer Bruschetta, chill a bottle of our Muscat Canelli, and soak up some September sunshine!
Yum! We love enjoying fresh, local produce.
Print these out, or read ahead of time to impress your friends with all your flavor profile knowledge!
Rizzo Winery's 2008 Pinot Noir
One of the most picture-perfect vintages the Willamette Valley has ever seen. A vintage that created a wine that was rushed into wine cellars by buyers, leaving it sold out to anyone late to the game. Luckily for all of you, we are sharing our cellar with you, so you can have a luxurious tasting experience with the 2008 vintage.
The 2008 vintage was a knockout for the Willamette Valley. It had everything vintners love, naturally lower yields, a bit of rain towards harvest that didn’t dilute the grapes but hydrated them instead, and a range of temperatures that allow for interesting acidity and flavors to develop all summer long. A vintage that swept the valley and sold out to be stored in wine cellars all over the world. Luckily for you all, we love sharing and have brought this bottled beauty out of our cellar for you to enjoy the luxury of drinking perfectly aged Pinot Noir.
A stunning appearance of our 2008 Pinot Noir.
The luxury of a well aged Pinot Noir, tasting incredible right from the cellar.
An outstanding vintage, a pretty much sold out everywhere vintage, that we have for you!
Rizzo Winery's 2011 Pinot Noir Rosé
Learn all about our bone dry, delicious, tangerine forward Rosé made with the finest Pinot Noir grapes from Oregon's famous winemaking region the Willamette Valley.
The world has come a long way from the days of White Zinfandel in the 1980’s, since then we’ve seen a resurgence of Rosé wines. Now, it seems, there is a Rosé for every occasion, with every flavor profile, and in every pink hue imaginable. Yes, normally Rosé is from the newest vintage filled with youth and optimism, but 2011 was an interesting vintage here in the Willamette Valley. We found that with all of the greatest things in life there is patience that lies beneath the surface. Pinot Noir across the valley are tasting the best they’ve ever been from 2011 and even the Rosé’s needed this time to develop what would become delicious signature flavors.
A soft salmon hue of beauty in our 2011 Pinot Noir Rosé.
A printable tasting note to read as you sip and swirl your beautiful rosé.
Learn all about weather from the 2011 vintage and the journey of the grape to make the wine!
Rizzo Winery's 2006 Pinot Noir
Dive into the world of well-aged Pinot Noir with us as we share some knowledge on aging wines, our 2006 Pinot Noir flavor profile, and the 2006 vintage here in the Eola-Amity Hills.
There is a common misconception about aging Pinot Noir that exists in society, and we’re here to tell you that the age limits that exist are guidelines, not hard fast rules. Aging wine, in any sense is fully dependent on the quality of the wine you’re trying to age. Our wines are of incredible quality, we have cellared these wines because we believed in them, and now we’re drinking the benefits of that. This 2006 Pinot Noir is a delicious and true testament to this belief. Buy a bottle or two, grab a glass and enjoy the luxury of aged Pinot Noir.
Our 2006 Pinot Noir, just as beautiful as ever
Printable tasting note for the 2006 Pinot Noir, read as you sip!
Vintage notes for 2006, a little insight in the grapes journey from bud burst to the bottle you’re drinking from!