Bow & Arrow
When Scott Frank moved from New York to Portland after 9/11, he hadn’t planned on becoming a winemaker. He found his way into wine at New Seasons Market, where he worked as a buyer, before joining Cameron Winery in the Dundee Hills and learning the trade. Although surrounded by Oregon Pinot Noir, he kept returning to Muscadet, Gamay and other Loire wines—bottles he loved and could afford to open regularly. In 2010, he started Bow & Arrow with those wines in mind, setting up in the basement of The Bindery, a former bookbinding factory in Northeast Portland, before later moving production to a custom-crush facility.
Scott owns no vineyards. He calls himself a “scrappy négociant”: buy a little fruit, rent a little space, and you're a winemaker. The problem was that many of the grapes he wanted barely existed in Oregon, so he found growers willing to plant or graft them for him. At Johan Vineyard, a biodynamic estate in the Van Duzer Corridor, Gamay, Melon and Cabernet Franc were grafted for Bow & Arrow beginning in 2011. Didier Barrouillet of Clos Roche Blanche in Touraine even advised Scott on the early Gamay over the phone.
Bow & Arrow describes itself as an homage to the “refreshing and decidedly working class wines” of the Loire. That idea runs through both the grapes Scott works with and the way he makes the wines. Whole clusters, semi-carbonic fermentation and direct pressing are used depending on the grape, with aging in concrete, steel or neutral wood. Fermentations are spontaneous, and sulfur is the only addition. Scott compares it to salt in cooking: too little or too much ruins the dish, but the right amount makes it come alive.
Scott also thinks about Bow & Arrow like an independent record label, with each vintage another release from a favorite band. The wines change from year to year, but the approach is consistent: Oregon fruit, Loire references, straightforward cellar work and bottles made to be opened and drunk rather than collected.
