By Elizabeth Kratz

Tasting Kosher Pinot Noir

From Oregon’s Willamette Valley

Asthe kosher-keeping community continues to seek variety and depth within the world of wine, a new interest has emerged in wines from the American Pacific Northwest, and particularly in pinot noir from

By Elizabeth Kratz

from the east and west from the Oregon Coast Mountain Range to the Cascade Mountains. At just over 5,350 square miles, it is Oregon’s largest AVA, and it contains most of the state’s wineries; approximately 900 as of 2021.

Steve Anderson is the winemaker for Twin Suns Reserve Pinot Noir.

the well-known Willamette Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA) in Oregon, which is increasingly compared to the world-famous terroir of Burgundy, in France. Willamette Valley stretches north to south from the Columbia River to Eugene, and

Just one of those wineries is currently making kosher wines.

Steve Anderson is the winemaker who made the Twin Suns Reserve Pinot Noir 2021, which is newly released and has just arrived in stores this fall. Managing one of the larger cellar programs in the state, he is a native Oregonian who has been working as a winemaker since 1993. He also makes kosher wines—as he calls it, as part of his Eola Hills-based winery’s “custom crush program”—all from Willamette Valley. These projects are expected to grow and expand this coming year.

Willamette Valley has been compared to Burgundy both because of its mineral rich soil and cool climate. However, the

U.S. viticultural policies are also not as restricted by tradition as in France, which has rigid laws regarding when one can pick, how much one can pick, or how much one can make from a hectoliter of grapes, said Anderson, in a phone interview. “We have volcanic soil, irons, silica-rich and limestones. One of our legacy vineyards actually also has marine sediment, so in the space of 20 meters, there is a difference between the vines that were planted on virtually the same day, with the same root stock.