Brianne Day’s Oregon Passetoutgrains Bottled for the Bistro

Vin de Days Rouge 2023 is an 82% Pinot Noir and 18% Gamay red from Oregon, priced at $20.94 in the US and £31 in the UK. Day Wines marked its 15th anniversary in September 2026, and the cuvée now reaches UK drinkers through Milestone Wines and Barks Wine Shop in Sheffield.

Why Brianne Day’s Oregon Passetoutgrains Matters Now

Day Wines has always made room for bottles that sit slightly outside the familiar Oregon script. Pinot Noir still anchors the Willamette Valley conversation, and Day works with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah, but her cellar also takes in Malvasia, Tannat and Aligoté. Vin de Days Rouge fits that broader pattern: an Oregon red built for the table, using Pinot Noir as the base and drawing its line back to Bourgogne Passetoutgrains, where Pinot Noir and Gamay share the bottle.

The 2023 blend carries 82% Pinot Noir and 18% Gamay, a choice that keeps Pinot Noir in the foreground while allowing Gamay to bring lift. Brianne Day changes the Vin de Days Rouge blend by vintage, sometimes using Gamay and Cabernet Franc, other times bringing in Pinot Meunier and Pinot Gris. In 2023, she kept the idea direct: Pinot Noir, Gamay, semi-carbonic maceration, stainless steel, neutral French oak and six months before bottling.

Many Oregon reds ask for a cellar conversation before a dinner conversation. JancisRobinson.com’s Samantha Cole-Johnson describes Luxardo cherries, earthy potting soil, lightly grippy mulch-like woodiness, toast and cherry character, with notes that show best after a year or three in bottle. The wine is ready now and has enough savoury edge for further bottle age.

From Portland Restaurants to a 12,000-Square-Foot Winery

Brianne Day’s route into Oregon wine began well before the 2023 Vin de Days Rouge. In 2006, she sold everything she owned and began travelling through wine regions around the world. Over the next eight years she visited around 80 regions and worked at wineries in Burgundy, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. Day started her own winery and released the first vintage of Day Wines in 2012 (Bowlerwine¹).

Day’s restaurant experience shaped Vin de Days Rouge. Day waited tables at Le Pigeon and Little Bird in Portland, two French restaurants whose lists included light bistro reds that could move from tuna tartare to steak frites without forcing the table into a single pairing lane. That memory shaped Vin de Days Rouge as a Pinot Noir-led Oregon wine based on the food-friendly model of Passetoutgrains rather than Burgundy’s soils or village names.

The estate grew into a 12,000-square-foot facility by 2022 after Day bought and outfitted it in 2015. In that first year at the site, she rented space to 10 other brands. By 2022, Day Wines had grown to occupy the full facility. The image that lingers from Cole-Johnson’s earlier Portland days is practical rather than polished: Day arriving with an infant strapped to her back, pushing through a wine-shop door with two cases in her arms.

The Winemaking: Half Destemmed, Half Whole Cluster

Day’s method for Vin de Days Rouge 2023 gives the wine its bistro pulse. She destems about half the fruit and leaves the other half in whole clusters, then ferments in stainless-steel fermenters and plastic bins. As fermentation begins, she pumps juice over the cap while keeping the whole clusters intact. The result is semi-carbonic maceration, the technique behind the wine’s juicy lift.

"to show a different side of Pinot Noir, prioritising youth and immediate drinkability over ageing potential"

, Brianne Day, winemaker, Jancis Robinson²

After pressing, Day moves the wine to a mix of stainless-steel vats and neutral French oak barrels for six months before bottling. Vin de Days Rouge uses neutral oak rather than new barrels. Stainless steel preserves the fruit’s line; used French oak adds texture without dragging the wine away from its purpose at the table.

The wine uses a Burgundian structure, with Pinot Noir as the spine, Gamay for brightness, whole clusters for aromatic lift, and an ageing regime aimed at lunch, supper and a second glass.

Cassin, Finnigan Hill, Nemarniki and Johan

Vin de Days Rouge 2023 comes from a network of growers and is not a single-parcel Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir sets the frame in 2023, and Gamay supplies red-fruited snap. The quartet gives the wine provenance beyond a generic regional red.

The 2023 Vin de Days Rouge draws on four named Oregon sources. The wine reflects trust between a winemaker and growers whose farming choices shape a wine intended for immediate pleasure.

Tasting the 2023 Vin de Days Rouge

JancisRobinson.com’s note on the 2023 Vin de Days Rouge gives the bottle its clearest sensory outline: Luxardo cherries, earthy potting soil, lightly grippy mulch-like woodiness, toast and cherry intensity. Those details place the wine between fruit and earth, with enough savoury material to keep the Pinot Noir from reading as simple and enough Gamay energy to keep the blend moving.

Day modeled the cuvée on the food range of tuna tartare and steak frites. Tuna tartare needs freshness and modest extraction. Steak frites needs grip and savour. Semi-carbonic maceration, 50% whole clusters and six months in stainless steel give Day the tools to keep both possibilities open. The wine can be served slightly cool without muting the cherry core, especially with charcuterie, roast chicken, mushrooms or a plate of fries with aioli.

Vin de Days Rouge 2023 costs $20.94 in the US and £31 in the UK. At that price, Vin de Days Rouge 2023 includes named vineyards, Demeter-certified Johan fruit in the blend, a winemaker with Burgundy cellar experience, and a style that does not ask for a decade in bottle. It can sit beside cru Beaujolais at dinner while still speaking in a Willamette Valley accent.

How to Buy, Serve and Follow Day Wines

In the US, Day Wines sells Vin de Days Rouge direct and through many retail outlets. In the UK, Milestone Wines imports the 2023 vintage, and Barks Wine Shop in Sheffield carries the bottle. Vin de Days Rouge travels with a clearer retail path than many small Oregon cuvées.

The wine’s Pinot Noir base brings cherry fruit and Oregon familiarity; the Gamay share brings the easy movement that makes Passetoutgrains so useful in French dining rooms. Pâté, roast chicken, grilled mushrooms, steak frites and tuna tartare all echo the Portland restaurant memory that shaped the cuvée.

For anyone following Brianne Day's Oregon Passetoutgrains idea, the next vintages will be the point of interest. Day varies the blend with the year, and Vin de Days Rouge may move again between Gamay, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Gris depending on the fruit in front of her. The 2023 gives the cleanest current read on the project: 82% Pinot Noir, 18% Gamay, four Oregon vineyard sources, semi-carbonic maceration and six months in steel.

The estate has moved from hand deliveries in Portland to a 12,000-square-foot winery and UK distribution, while Vin de Days Rouge has kept its bistro scale in the glass. Day’s next blend may show how Pinot Noir remains at the centre of her Oregon Passetoutgrains idea.