Division Villages “La Frontière” ’22 Sauvignon Blanc 2022
Division “l’Orange” 2022
Division Wine “Lutte” Gamay Noir Willamette Valley 2021
Division Villages “Béton” 2022
Division Wine “Un” Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 2022

Tonight, we are hosting Kate Norris of Oregon’s Division Wine Company who will pour and tell us all about her wines. Kate, and her partner Tom Monroe, fell into the wine abyss seemingly by happenstance after spending a few months in France farming and making wine with friends of Kate’s family who live in the Loire. The recession that began in 2008 affected their livelihoods and, with the economy going belly up, it seemed like a good opportunity to spend time overseas. While they were abroad, they drank as much wine as they could get their hands on, but I do not believe that they initially had plans to fall so deeply for wine and seek an instrumental end to their trip. Upon their return they began with an initial vintage of Oregon pinot noir rosé made in someone else’s facility. In 2012, Kate and Tom opened the Southeast Wine Collective, a winemaking group home of sorts for which lowered the entry bar for themselves and other small winemakers such as Vincent Fritzsche.

Overall, Kate and Tom’s approach centers on their respect for the traditional expression of grape varieties such as gamay and pinot noir found in the grapes’ homelands. Their goal has never been to make increasingly extracted, taste-alike wines that score points and fulfill the preferences of consumers that crave such basic entertainments. Case in point: Division’s “Béton,” a savory, earthy wine which reflects the non-varietal field blends of cabernet franc, côt, gamay (& etc.) that are traditional in the Loire. We’re also tasting one of the Division gamays (Kate and Tom, like me, have a healthy obsession with gamay) that, if you close your eyes and don’t look at the label, you might mistake for a wine from the old country. In addition, we are also tasting a wine that is decidedly non-traditional: the Division orange wine. Unlike in Italy, French winegrowers do not have a long tradition of making orange wines, yet folks who come from staunchly traditional winemaking origins, such as Matthieu Deiss and Stéphane Bannwarth, are trying their hand at it to favorable effect.