Surrounded by the cherry orchards and wheat fields central to Wasco County agriculture, Hillside Vineyard is an arid, warm and windy locale. Planted in 1983-5 by Harold Haake and Lonnie Wright, Hillside is 80 miles east of Portland along the Columbia River in the loamy, sandstone foothills south of The Dalles. Approaching the high desert of central Oregon and the Columbia Basin, there is a rugged beauty here that few connect with the image of Oregon, or at the very least, Oregon viticulture. With that, Riesling, at least on paper, makes little sense here. But, through the lens of skin maceration and meticulous canopy management, the expression of Heavy Water is one of a Mediterranean climate in the Eastern Gorge that reverberates this place in a very singular way. Picked on September 22nd, the fruit was completely destemmed and left on its skins in open top fermenters for fifteen days with careful extraction. Once pressed, the juice was settled and racked into old French barrels (228L) where it remained on its fine lees without racking until June. 20ppm sulfur added at racking and bottled unfiltered and unfined on July 2nd 2021.