Wine critic Steven Baker follows the cool climate back roads of Oregon Pinot noir country and shares his journal. His business, Authentica Wines, is a membership based wine club.

In 1885, after a year of tough scrabbling in the gold fields of California and southern Oregon, a lonely prospector on his way back home stopped to camp under a tree on a hill top not far from Lafayette, in the northern Willamette Valley. Sometime that night, he was murdered and his "poke" of gold stolen, along with his saddle and other meager belongings. The culprit was never found.

That oak tree still stands today on the Century Farm owned by fourth generation dairy farmer Mike Bayliss - you can look out the living room window of the old farm house and see it just across the road. Local legend has it that on certain dark nights of the year, especially All Hallows Eve, there are flickering lights that appear on the hilltop - almost like an old oil lamp that might aid the prospector's ghost looking for his stolen poke. Local kids avoid the place like the plague.

Whether you believe in ghosts or not is up to you, but one thing not up for debate is the quality of Ghost Hill wines. This small, artisan label began just a few years ago when Mike decided that the old, family dairy farm could produce world class pinot noir grapes, since the farm is ideally situated in the center of some of the finest pinot noir country in the entire valley. Just beyond the hill where the ghost roams lies Guadeloupe Vineyard, a single vineyard bottling of note from Ken Wright, and to the north lie Ken's Abbot Claim Vineyard and Tony Soter's Mineral Springs site - a spooky good neighborhood to be sure.

The Ghost Hill line-up consists of the Bayliss-Bower Vineyard Pinot Noir, the Pinot Noir Blanc (an elegant and finely chiseled white wine made from 100% pinot noir) and a Rosé of Pinot Noir. Crafted at the Carlton Winemaker's Studio by the lovely and talented Rebecca Marie Pittock Shouldis, they are annually some of the finest wines from the appellation.

~ Steve Baker

Ghost Hill
Bayliss-Bower Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2009
Release Price: $42.00

Ghost Hill
Bayliss-Bower Vineyard Pinot Noir Blanc, 2009
Release Price: $25.00

Ghost Hill
Rosé of Pinot Noir, 2009
Release Price: $18.00

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