Fossil & Fawn 'Only Always' Willamette Valley 2023

Partners (in life and in wine) Jenny Mosbacher and Jim Fischer Jr. may not take themselves too seriously, but they are quite serious about land stewardship, organic viticulture and downright delicious and balanced, low-intervention wine. Since 2011, the two have been producing “odd and yummy” wines (their words) from sustainably farmed vineyards in Oregon’s Eola-Amity Hills AVA and 15 acres of vines Jim and his father planted about a decade earlier. Though their initial goal was to showcase their particularity of place in American terroir, the idea has blossomed into creating expressions they personally enjoy drinking, made via “a natural approach that allows the vineyard to do the talking,” says their website. Wines are fermented naturally, they avoid fining and filtering, and the bare minimum amount of sulfur is used at bottling. This lovely labeled bottling is their ode to the stylistically complex Gemischter Satz blends of Austria and Alsace, in which a mélange of coplanted grapes is harvested, pressed and processed together. Composed of 50-ish-year-old auxerrois, riesling and gewürztraminer sourced from volcanic soils in the South Salem Hills, it’s rich yet bright, textural and enchantingly aromatic, offering floral-accented tones of mirabelle plum, Comice pear, lemon cream and yuzu around a mineral core. Certified sustainable, organically grown, low intervention/natural wine.