Andrew JeffordAJ | Anthony Rose AR | David Williams DW
fruit notes. Similarly, when you taste, there’s an instant hit of juicy, fresh-strawberry and cherry ripeness, an opulence restrained, however, by a new dimension to the wine in which the supporting structural elements add nicely savory notes that will chime nicely with food. It’s still youthful, almost muscular, in structure, and time in bottle should add to its appeal. 2024–31. | 93 DW | A wine that leads with sweetly ripe, glossy red cherry, of which there is plenty to spare here; good flow and energy, too; there’s a refreshing orange-citrus tang, almost pithy and bittersweet, that adds to the straightforward fleshy pleasure here; good length, very fine tannins, and that subtly bitter tinge keeps the finish refreshing. Another accessible, appealing, and true-to-type Pinot. 2024–28. | 90
The Beaux Freres Vineyard Beaux Freres Willamette Valley Ribbon Ridge AVA 2021 (13.5% ABV)
| 93
AJ | Dark, clear black-red. Fresh, lively, lifted, and engaging: sweet cherry, with some tarry warmth. Dry straw behind. Energetic and sappy Pinot, with lots of freshness and pungency glowing in its rosy cheeks. Pure-fruited, without a lot of structuring tannin but the fruit quality is outstanding, uncloying, pure, true, and long, marbled with lively acidity. Excellent Pinot. Check out your afterbreath, once you’ve swallowed: you’ll find it fine, pure, pristine. Another testament of quality. 2024–31. | 93 AR | Youthfully vivid in color, this is fresh and distinctively Pinot Noir in its perfumed fruit character, if still a tad on the shy side; the fruit is dark cherry- and loganberry-like, showing a marked, ripe sweetness and good full flavor, undercut by an almost-crisp, fresh acidity that adds a nice dimension to the character of the wine, a kind of savory, mouthwatering element that says, bring me to the menu; it’s an understated, elegant style, seamlessly put together, a wine any Pinot lover would be happy to have in their cellar (i.e. me). 2024–34. | 92 DW | An unforced and frictionless flow of enchantingly ripe cherry-blackberry fruit sashays across the palate in this immensely and immediately attractive wine; very harmonious, with a burgeoning forest-floor character and seamless tannins; glossily appealing and gulpable wine, with just enough earthy-rooty-bitterness to keep it from facile fruitiness. 2024–32. | 93
00 Wines Shea Willamette Valley Yamhill-Carlton 2021 (14% ABV) | 93
AJ | Dark black-red. This is very good. It doesn’t give you everything straight away (so not a fruit-charging nose) but it’s complex, engaging, even challenging—you need to strike in and look about. Forest, flowers, root spice, dried peels—all the good things, over a very quiet ground of cherry and plum. Terrific craft here. Deep and resourceful on the palate. Perhaps there is a bit too much dimension and structural grandeur here to appeal to Pinot classicists, but it is a wine full of layers and interest and makes up in width and allusion for what it might lack in primary fruit drive. 2024–30. | 91 AR | Youthfully vivid ruby hue. This is fresh and sweetly perfumed, with strawberry and cherry
AJ | Dark black-red. Warm, plummy, rich; wonderfully enrobed. Seamless, so almost hard to pick out the detail, but a beautifully complete aroma. Impeccable oak here, just filling without ever forcing. It is the bigger, more orchestral style of Pinot. And that will be very clear on the palate, too: lush, lavish, ample, but the quality of the fruit at the core of this wine is outstanding. Relatively discreet tannins, but the ripe acids hold the wine well on track. Bottled as semi-mature, so you don’t need to wait long to explore everything on offer here. 2024–29. | 91 AR | Mid-ruby, youthful hue, still elemental in aroma, smells like a dry red of indeterminate origin; the flavors are attractive, however, lots of fresh, crunchy dark berries, nicely expressed, with no excess oak in the flavors, while the texture is firm, vigorously youthful, albeit a tad tough, showing quite some extraction, but that in itself brings a certain energy; needs patience for the dark arts of this Pinot Noir to shine through. 2024–30. | 90 DW | Wonderfully refined and detailed nose, with vivid berry fruits—so fresh and inviting; the palate courses and surges with that finely glimmering red and black fruit, there’s sappiness and fine mineral acidity—a wine of immediate charm and verve but one with enough to intrigue over time, too. 2024–32. | 95
Evening Land Vineyards Summum Seven Springs Estate Willamette Valley Eola-Amity Hills 2022 (13.2% ABV)
| 92
AJ | Scarlet-black, but perhaps with less polyphenolic density than the ’21s. Rounded, fresh, and classical, with both black cherry and raspberry fruits. Soft-focus but very enticing here, and a lovely, falling sweetness: cherry Chantilly cream. A leafy note brings freshness. Vital and mouthfilling, with the leafy note a bit more prominent than I thought it would be on the nose. Zesty Pinot. 2024–28. | 90 AR | Vivid and youthfully ruby-hued. A sweet, spicy, and refreshingly herbal perfume, and distinctively Pinot Noir; although still youthful, the sweet red-cherry and raspberry fruit, tinged with herb, is already approachably juicy and hard not to drink, even if it will continue to improve in bottle over the next five years or so, given its balance and elegance. 2024–29. | 92
notes, the oak nicely playing second fiddle; there’s some lovely, sumptuous dark-cherry fruit purity when you taste the wine, underpinned by stylish oak, good intensity of vivid loganberry and mulberry fruit flavors, with stylish oak adding a touch of spice but above all nicely rounding out the texture with a light grip, adding to the refreshingly juicy feel of an energetic, sumptuously pure Pinot Noir, with excellent aging potential. 2024–34. | 95 DW | Very keen, tangy, yet darkly engaging fruit; earthy and botanical and sappy, some dark-chocolate bitterness, too; quite tight and coiled but full of contained energy; one to watch. 2024–30. | 92
Lingua Franca Wines Tongue’n Cheek Willamette Valley Eola- Amity Hills 2021 (13.5% ABV)
| 92
AN UNFORCED AND FRICTIONLESS FLOW OF ENCHANTINGLY RIPE CHERRY- BLACKBERRY FRUIT SASHAYS ACROSS THE PALATE IN THIS IMMENSELY ATTRACTIVE WINE
DW | Very primary and youthful: unmediated red-cherry juice; shimmering with fresh-fruit concentration and succulence, supple, ripe tannins, and a lovely, freshening streak of blood-orange tang and pithy bite. A delightful, young, fresh red wine filled with verve and life. 2024–30. | 93
Bethel Heights Vineyard Estate Willamette Valley Eola-Amity Hills 2022 (13.3% ABV)
| 92
AJ | The darkest of the run of ’22 Eola-Amities: deep black-red. Warm, open, well-rounded aromas of chunky red fruits, tobacco, root spice, oat flake, and leather. Very attractively fashioned and controlled. An animal hint behind a big depth-charge of fruit: plum, raspberry, currant, pomegranate, and black cherry—they’re all there. Wow: splendid. The oak is well-done, shaping and cosseting. Nothing much secondary yet, but give it time... the aromas show that those nuances will eventually fetch up on the palate, too. A grand wine for the next decade in relatively ostentatious style. 2024–32. | 92 AR | A vivid, deep, youthful ruby, promising a lot, if the color is anything to go by. It’s a little bit shy in aroma but ticking the boxes of freshness, floral perfume, and red-berry fragrance without the interference of obvious oak; and when you taste, there’s plenty of youthful vigor there, almost an attack on the tongue, lots of juicy, red-berry fruit, with crunchy, cranberryish acidity and oak very much a background feature; still too young at this stage to enjoy drinking, I would gamble that it will gradually open out from (not very ugly) ducking into a (fine) swan in three to four years. 2024–32. | 90 DW | Sumptuous, plush, polished, and ripe: delightful fruit quality here, so inviting, yet not at all overbearing or excessive; there’s a real streak of tingling acidity and beetroot earthiness that contrasts and enlivens. Real clarity and verve on the long finish. 2024–30. | 93
Hundred Suns Wine Bednarik Vineyard Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Tualatin Hills 2021 (13.6% ABV)
| 91
AJ | Clear, dark black-red. Ample sweet charm here—not just the cherries, but the cherry blossom, too. Holds well in the glass. Bright, sweet, textured, fresh—very much the mouthful you’d expect from the aromas, save that it has a little more substance and drive. There are some
THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025 | 211
SAVOR: OREGON PINOT NOIR
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