The Holiday Gift Guide Is Here!

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 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

Muscat Canelli, Food's Best Friend

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: 2011 Estate Pinot Noir

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 Wine Cellar

At Rizzo Winery, we handcraft every bottle of wine with the utmost care. Many of our current vintages, don’t seem so current, since they’re often over 5 years old. Many of you must wonder, why age them for so long?

A little wine library, full of books and wines of age & potential

Of course, there are many opinions and advice on how long wines can age, but we have a deep understanding of our wines (we did make them, after all). What we have found, is that the main factor for a wine’s ability to age is the harmony between the different flavor components right off the bat. If there’s a good tannic structure, high acidity, and budding flavors when they’re young, then leaving the wine to age in the bottle allows for the marriage of these components. Over time the tannins will soften and the high acidity will mellow but will still allow the wine to taste fresh and filled with youth when you pull out the cork many years later. One of the main reasons we allow our wines to age is their flavors mature, gaining complexity and depth. Ripe and juicy fruit flavors can become earthy, opulent, and taste sweeter with time in the bottle.

The simple answer to why we age them before we offer them to you all is that we prefer them this way. We are experts in temptation and we think you deserve cellar wines without the hassle of aging them yourself.