SOIL

Terroir

​

Marine sediment colliding with volcanic soil creates the Eola Amity Hills. Windfall Vineyard sits on the western hillside edge of this virtuous AVA, allowing for diverse soil types and the opportunity to create a variety of exceptional wines and flavor profiles. 

​

Windfall vineyard is comprised of 117 acres, 55 of those acres being plantable. Located in the depths of these 55 vast and fruitful acres lives a variety of soil types. The geology of the site is a marine siltstone and sandstone. The parent materials of the soils consist of loamy colluvium derived from sedimentary rock. The terrain is moderately broad to narrow ridges with 4-12% slope and shoulder slopes that are 12-20% gradient. Elevation of the property ranges from 650 ft on the north ridge down to about 330 ft on the low end of the property to the south.

​

The marine sediment comes from the West and the volcanic rock comes from the East, colliding their tectonic plates creating the Eola-Amity Hills. This provides the vineyard to have two very distinct soil types allowing for significant block variation from clone to clone. We have noticed on the marine sediment side, portions of the soil having fossils that clearly once were at the bottom of the ocean floor. Whereas on other portions of the vineyard, we have volcanic rock that comes from the cascade mountain range side creating a wonderful mixture of two very important soil types.

 

Types of Soil

 

Chehulpum

Chehulpum soils are shallow (10-20 inches to weather siltstone). They have a thick, dark surface with bedrock directly below the surface layer. These soils can be droughty if not irrigated. Chehulpum soils have low vigor potential and are planted with drought tolerant rootstocks. These soils produce excellent wines

 

Hazelair

Hazelair soils are moderately well drained and very clayey, and moderately deep to siltstone. Mostly located on the west and south regions of the vineyard. The very clayey subsoil is predominately smectite clay, which has a high shrink swell capacity, and the soils swell in the rainy season. In the summer, the same soils harden and have large surface cracks.

 

Willakenzie

These are loamy soils that are moderately deep and well drained having weathered sedimentary rock to 30 inches. These soils formed in colluvium of sedimentary rock produce high quality fruit and have moderate vigor.

 

Soil Depth

Soil depths range from shallow chehulpum soils (12-20 inches) to moderately deep Willakenzie and Hazelair soils (20-40 inches). The upper contact of the siltstone is a paralithic layer of softer, more weathered siltstone and the underlying rock is fractured, hard sandstone and siltstone.

​