Ram Cellars - 'Orange Fraîche' - Riesling - Underwood Mountain, Columbia Valley, WA - 2022

Our 2022 Orange Fraîche is a Nouveau-style orange wine using skin-contact fermented Riesling from Washington’s Columbia Gorge.

Orange-style wines are produced by fermenting white wine grapes in contact with the grape skins (and, in our case, the whole clusters including the stems as well). Nouveau-style wines are fresh, fruit-forward young wines that are released in the same year they are harvested. Classically, lighter bodied red wines like Pinot Noir and Gamay Noir have been the stars of the show when it comes to Nouveau-style wines, but we feel that there’s a lot of room to showcase other varietals and styles soon after harvest.

The tannins extracted from the time on the skins and whole clusters give our orange style wines a body and mouthfeel similar to a lighter bodied red, while the typical acid-forward style of our Riesling brings a zesty, citrus packed punch that makes this the perfect year-round wine. It’s the ‘swiss army knife’ of food pairing wines thanks to that combination of additional body and bright acidity. 2022 was another long year, but our Orange Fraiche is proof that there is still much to celebrate as we closed the books on our 9th harvest at RAM Cellars.

As far as tasting notes, cantaloupe, lemongrass, ocean breeze, tangerine, and jasmine greet the nose, while elderflower, lemon balm, candied orange peel, starfruit, lemon hard candy, fresh oranges, and a hint of limestone await in glass. Like a spring sunset fading into tangerine dreams or straw spun into gold, it surprises and delights.

The incredible label art for this wine was once again crafted by our dear friend Rhett Bennick, whose work you can check out at https://www.rhett-illustrates.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/rhett_illustrates.

RAM Cellars

Here at RAM Cellars, it’s our pleasure and honor to bring hand crafted wines to you and yours. We seek to make small batch lots of wines that are reflective of both the season they were grown and the varietal characteristics of the grapes they contain. We do this through native yeast ferments on all wines, zero fining or filtration, minimal sulfite levels, and meticulous treatment of our wines throughout their lifecycle in the cellar.
We work with some of the under-hyped Bordeaux varietals, like Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot, as well as Tempranillo, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Gewürztraminer, and Grüner Veltliner. Utilizing neutral french oak or stainless steel aging to accentuate the true varietal characteristics of the grapes, we work to develop balanced, approachable wines that exhibit good acidity and aromatics. We pick fruit earlier than some other wineries in order to ensure that our wines are acid forward, and we typically produce dryer whites, rosés, and red wines that are authentic and straightforward!
So, why the name RAM Cellars? The idea started as a combination of the honoring of family initials and the search for a meaningful brand icon for the winery. Our winemaker Vivianne’s late grandfather, one of her biggest supporters, had the initials R A M. Simply put, our name pays homage to family and those who came before us.

The launch of RAM Cellars was the culmination of years of studies and work by winemaker Vivianne Kennedy. An interest in wine turned into a love of wine, which turned into an intense curiosity about everything that goes into the production of premium wines. After the ‘aha’ moment at a barrel tasting at Washington State’s Kiona winery many years ago, Vivianne took up studies through Washington State University’s extension campus in Prosser, WA on both viticulture and enology, the science of wine winemaking.
Volunteer time at Davenlore Winery (Prosser, WA) through the Wazzu programs spread out over several years, as well as a short stint at Montinore Estate (Forest Grove, OR) during the 2012 harvest season were precursors to a harvest internship at Enso Winery (Portland, Oregon) in 2013. That harvest internship turned into a position as cellars master and assistant winemaker that lasted through the end of 2018. Learning from excellent winemakers along the way has made a major contribution to Vivianne’s winemaking philosophy.
From 2014 to 2019, RAM Cellars was just Vivianne (she / her), with occasional spot help for a few bigger events and a spare set of hands here and there during harvests. Viv launched the winery in 2014 and released the first RAM Cellars wines in early 2016. Pouring the wine somewhere nearly weekly, Viv created a market for the wines, bottle by bottle, at wine shops, New Seasons & Green Zebra Grocery stores, and restaurants in Oregon and Washington. In 2018, Vivianne made the decision that saved her life and came out as a transgender woman. In the spring of 2019, she launched the first wines under a new label, dubbed “VIV.” VIV label wines raise money for organizations that provide support to queer and transgender people through a $5 donation for the sale of every bottle. Although the name of this label is the shorthand of our winemaker’s full first name, it was actually chosen because “viv” is the French root word that means “to live, to be alive.” As Viv will tell you, making the choice to come into the light and live fully as herself meant that she, too, gets to live, and be alive, for a long time to come. With that extra life comes extra responsibility to do good, meaningful things for members of communities she is a part of, which led to the birth of the new label. Partners whom the Viv label has raised money for include the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (in support of their Name Change Project), Portland’s Q Center, and most recently the Trans Lifeline!

We firmly believe that our grower partners are the cornerstone of making great wines. We’re proud to partner with growers across Washington and Oregon who are managing the grapes thoughtfully, sustainably, and, when possible, organically (shout out to our friends at Canyon’s Gate Vineyard for following organic vine management practices!). We are lucky to have great relationships with amazing growers and are excited about the future of the strong relationships we’ve cultivated with our friends and fabulous wine growers!
We’ve had the pleasure of working with many outstanding vineyards across the Pacific Northwest over the past decade, sourcing grapes from Southern Oregon’s Umpqua Valley, Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the Columbia River Gorge in both Washington and Oregon, and several sites in Eastern Washington. Our current partners include Alder Ridge Vineyard and South Hill Vineyards in Washington State's Columbia River Gorge, Hanson Vineyards in the East Willamette Valley, Dixon Vineyards on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge, and Canyon’s Gate Vineyard and Diamondback Ridge Vineyards further to the north and east in Washington’s Columbia Valley. From Alder Ridge, we’ve brought in Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot; from Hanson, we’ve source Gewürztraminer, Riesling, and Pinot Noir; from Dixon, we’ve sourced Pinot Noir, while Diamondback Ridge (and their sister vineyard, Bosma Estate Vineyard) has supplied us with the grapes for our Roussanne, Counoise, Cinsault, Malbec, Syrah, Marsanne, Merlot, and Petit Verdot! We’ve also worked with Canyon’s Gate Vineyard for Chardonnay from this organically managed site near Yakima, WA.