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.
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
Our 2015 Pinot Noir Is A Winner Baby!
Read all about how delicious our 2015 Pinot Noir is and how it won 90 points and a gold medal in the 2021 Sommeliers Choice Awards!
We entered our 2015 Pinot Noir to the 2021 Sommeliers Choice Awards and we won gold!
2015 Pinot Noir Tasting Notes
2015 was a warm vintage in Eola-Amity Hills, this gave our Pinot Noir a darker color. As the dark ruby wine swirls in the glass, it releases aromas of sour gummy candy, strawberry juice, orange rind, and rhubarb pie. As the wine opens, it lends us earthy aromas of sweet and subtle rosemary. On the tongue, there’s a buzz from the alcohol, followed by an acidity that creates tart cherry flavors as it mingles in your mouth. A silky tannin, with flavors of ripe strawberries and a fruitiness that reminds us of summertime watermelon.
Sommeliers Choice Awards
The goal for the Sommeliers Choice Awards is to provide a valuable benchmark for which wines would make the best addition to a wine list. The judges for the Sommeliers Choice Awards are top sommeliers at restaurants, bars, pubs, and clubs in the United States. They taste the submitted wines and judge them based on how well they will pair with food items, their versatility, typicity, value, quality, and package.
Carménère: Once Lost, Now Found
Carménère is a grape with a very interesting history and creates delicious wines. We source our grapes from Oregon’s Columbia Valley, and now have wines exclusive to our Tasting Room that you should come and taste.
Carménère is a luscious, silky red wine with flavors of ripe raspberries, red cherries, green peppercorn and green bell pepper. A grape originally from Bordeaux, now mostly grown in Chile, and has been found in the beautiful Oregon Columbia Valley.
Our Carménère is exclusive to the Tasting Room, come visit us, taste it and take some home!
Carménère has a very interesting history, starting during the 16th century. Under Spanish rule, Chile was importing that red liquid gold all the way from Europe. Since the wine was traveling such far distances, it was becoming oxidized in the barrels on the ships and wasn’t at the quality they wanted, so they started making their own. As the Chilean wine industry started booming, wealthy landowners began importing vines from France, mostly from Burgundy.
As the wine industry in Chile kept growing, Carménère wasn’t being bottled, it was mostly Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Malbec. Now with science advancing, there were some differences amongst the Merlot vines in vineyards. There were some vineyards of Merlot that were ripening consistently later than their neighbor Merlot vines. In 1994 scientists decided to test the DNA of these vines, only to discover that instead of Merlot it was Carménère!
Now, this was a very exciting discovery because during WW2 the majority of France’s vineyards were destroyed both by war, but also by Phylloxera, a vine-eating disease brought over by Americans. During this time, Carménère was lost. Its vineyards in France completely wiped out, and when France went looking for vines to restart their own vineyards, Carménère was thought to be nowhere else in the entire world. When they discovered it was in Chile, the world rejoiced that this unique cousin of Cabernet Sauvignon was found once again.
Our 2014 Carménère has a beautiful body, coating your mouth with ease while still easy to sip enough to drink without food. This wine has flavors of ripe raspberries, jalepeño pepper, black peppercorns, and ripe black cherry. Only available in our Tasting Room, this wine is featured on our Bold & Beautiful flight but also is our May special.