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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Ryan Harris Domaine Serene Winery 6555 NE Hilltop Lane Dayton, OR 97114 (503) 864-4600 ryan@domaineserene.com www.domaineserene.com Domaine Serene Beats Top Burgundies for Decanter Magazine’s Highest 2016 DWWA Medal Dundee Hills winery Domaine Serene outperforms six grand cru and twenty-six premier cru Burgundy wines in the category for Pinot Noir over £15, winning one of only 31 Platinum “Best in Show” medals for its 2012 Winery Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir in Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) contest. Somewhat fitting in a year that marks the 40th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris tasting, London-based Decanter Magazine has announced that Domaine Serene Winery’s 2012 Winery Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir garnered a Platinum “Best in Show” medal and 95-point score at the 2016 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), held at the end of April. The DWWA panel of judges based their decision on a blind tasting of top pinot noirs from around the globe, and praised the wine’s “real density of jammy fruit, enhanced by oak spice and tannic structure, and a soft refreshing acidity.” Domaine Serene took home a total of eight medals from this year’s DWWA, including one platinum “best in show,” one silver medal and six bronze medal honors, the most of any American winery. Their 2012 Yamhill Cuvée had also recently been honored by Decanter, garnering a 95-point score at the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter in November 2015. Winery owner and co-founder, Grace Evenstad, noted the progress Oregon has made since she established Domaine Serene with her husband Ken in 1989. “Oregon Pinots have come a very long way,” she said. “When we started, we were told we wouldn’t be able to sell out wine outside of the state. We went to New York in 1992 with a little of our 1990 vintage, and people were asking: what’s Pinot Noir? And where’s Oregon? We knew Burgundy so well. When we started with our wines, we knew we had something similar.” Of the total 9,630 wines awarded medals at the 2016 DWWA, only 31 received “best in show” honors in their respective categories. Less than 2% of all international medal winners were from the United States. Of the 539 gold and platinum medal-winners, only five were American. Domaine Serene’s win is another major accolade for Oregon, which has risen to acclaim among international wine critics in the last two decades. Decanter Magazine is not the first major publication to recognize Domaine Serene as one of the world’s top wine producers. In 2013, the Domaine Serene 2010 Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir was the Wine Spectator’s top-ranked Pinot Noir in the World, and #3 in their Top-100 ranking of all wines that year. Renowned wine critic James Suckling has included Domaine Serene Winery in his prestigious list of Great Wines of the World for the past three years, an honor shared by only two other wineries in North America. Additionally, wine critic Anthony Dias Blue has described Domaine Serene as “The Château Lafite of Oregon”; and Robert Parker, Jr. of the Wine Advocate has designated Domaine Serene as one of only two wineries in the state that merit an “Outstanding” rating. Cork taint can occur in any wine using natural cork, regardless of price, style or quality level. This poses an especially acute problem for wines of elite quality. Created to evolve slowly in the bottle, these “collector’s wines” often do not reach peak drinkability until many years after release. High-quality natural corks allow close to 1 milligram of oxygen to enter the bottle each year, just the right amount of air to allow age-worthy wines to mature and develop complexity as their tannins gradually soften. Domaine Serene prides itself on crafting elegant, balanced Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that reward extended bottle aging and are prized by knowledgeable collectors. Consequently, the Evenstads have always been committed to using natural cork closures for all their wines. This explains their aggressive position on preventing cork taint, which would otherwise put at risk as many as one in twenty bottles purchased. The new Domaine Serene Guaranteed Closure policy guarantees and safeguards the investment and enjoyment of Domaine Serene consumers — both at the point of purchase and over many years of patient cellaring — by ensuring wine quality that is unsullied by TCA taint, regardless of where or when the cork is finally pulled. ABOUT DOMAINE SERENE A passion to produce exquisite Pinot Noir led Ken and Grace Evenstad to Oregon in 1989. When the time came to pursue their longtime dream of planting vineyards and producing world-class Pinot Noir, they invested in a 42-acre hilltop estate property that had just been logged in the Dundee Hills of Oregon. Today, Domaine Serene produces wines from six individual vineyard estates, planted exclusively to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Each estate offers a diversity of soils, clones, rootstocks, microclimates, slopes and elevations that add distinguishing complexity and elegance to the wines. Ken and Grace insist on dry-farming their low-yielding, LIVE certified-sustainable vineyards, ensuring maximum expression of complexity and balance in the fruit. In 2001, the Evenstads completed construction of their picturesque, state-of-the art, five-level, gravity flow winery that was built to over-vintage wines in barrel while also holding up to three vintages in bottle prior to release. Ken and Grace came full circle in their passion for great Pinot Noir and Chardonnay when they purchased the respected Burgundy wine estate, Château de la Crée, in 2015. Featuring a restored 15th century château in the historic Côte de Beaune village of Santenay, Château de la Crée holds vineyards located entirely along the acclaimed Côte d’Or escarpment, including Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet, Santenay, and Maranges. The Château also boasts a state-of-the-art, gravity-flow winery that was built in 2011. Guided by an unwavering commitment to quality, philanthropy and multi-generational sustainability, the Evenstads have garnered global recognition as iconic producers of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. For more information, contact Ryan Harris. Ryan@domaineserene.com If you choose to unsubscribe to this list please click here. Thank you! Domaine Serene 6555 NE Hilltop Lane Dayton, OR 97114 (503) 864-4600