tasting / savor / Oregon Pinot Noir ANTHONY ROSE’S VERDICT
A year on from our Oregon Chardonnay tasting, the tasting of Oregon Pinot Noir was a revelation in similar but different ways... and it lies in the nature of Pinot Noir itself. For while the forgiving nature of Chardonnay has made it such a successful globetrotting grape variety, Pinot Noir is by its very nature so much harder to get right. Not for nothing known as the heartbreak grape, it demands more specific soils, altitudes, exposures, and climate, and is more susceptible to vintage variation. From a winemaking perspective, I found that these wines were for the most part made with clear confidence, experience, and skill, rising to the quality challenge. Oak was in a minor key throughout and was rarely overt. Wine faults were few and far between. Most of the wines were under cork, but only one wine was obviously corked. Given how youthful the wines were, it was testament to the skill of the winemakers that these were wines of immediate appeal. They can happily be drunk young, even if the best will show secondary complexity with a few more years in bottle. Given the proximity of the vineyards and
the AVAs within the wider Willamette Valley, it was possible to detect stylistic differences. At the same time, there has been much success
TOP WINES
00 Wines Shea Yamhill-Carlton Willamette Valley 2021 95
Walter Scott Koosah Vineyard Eola-Amity Hills Willamette Valley 2021 95
Brick House Evelyn’s Pinot Noir Ribbon Ridge Willamette Valley 2021 94
Gran Moraine Gran Moraine Yamhill-Carlton Willamette Valley 2021 94
Cristom Jessie Vineyard Eola-Amity Hills Willamette Valley 2021 93
Domaine Drouhin Oregon Laurene Dundee Hills Willamette Valley 2021 93
Ponzi Vineyards Pinot Noir Laurelwood Willamette Valley 2021 93
Walter Scott Sojeau Vineyard Eola-Amity Hills Willamette Valley 2021 93
firm, meaty-juicy tannins that are very welcome and bring a little grandeur to the fruits. A delicious Chambolle-style wine. 2024–30. | 91 AR | Good depth of vivid, youthful ruby. This sets out with good intentions, showing an attractive, Turkish delight-like, floral fragrance tinged with raspberry and an underlying hint of fresh herb; the fruit is really well-handled, showing off the raspberry, juicy texture at first, with no obvious oak other than in the rounded, supple texture of the wine, whose adolescent muscle then kicks in, bringing enough structure to the wine for cellaring for five years plus. 2024–30. | 91 DW | Very pretty nose, with a lilting violet tone to the scents of this attractive middleweight,
212 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025
00 Wines Richard Hermann Cuvée Eola-Amity Hills Willamette Valley 2021 92
Adelsheim Breaking Ground Chehalem Mountains Willamette Valley 2021 92
The Beaux Frères Vineyard Ribbon Ridge Willamette Valley 2021 92
Evening Land Vineyards Summum Seven Springs Estate Eola-Amity Hills Willamette Valley 2022 92
Adelsheim Laurel Leaf Vineyard Laurelwood Willamette Valley 2021 91
Hundred Suns Wine Bednarik Vineyard Pinot Noir Tualatin Hills Willamette Valley 2021 91
Penner-Ash Wine Cellars Willamette Valley 2021 91
Trisaetum Estates Reserve Pinot Noir Ribbon Ridge Willamette Valley 2021 91
with a lovely, feathery feel to the tannins and nice depth of airy, red-cherry fruit and a fine mist of almost-orange-citrus acidity; a beguilingly gentle, summer-breezy ambience to a charmingly accessible Pinot. 2024–28. | 92
Adelsheim Breaking Ground Willamette Valley Chehalem Mountains 2021 (13% ABV; screwcap)
| 91
AJ | Dark black-red though translucent; scarlet (like most). Amply fruity, but lacks a little purity and lift. More compote-like; still agreeable, of course. Lots in here, but all a bit stuffed-in; I feel we need more purity and architecture. The ample
in locating the best climate and soils within the Willamette Valley (leading to its distinct AVAs). It’s not a competition, but the Eola-Amity Hills AVA perhaps shone brightest, taking six of the 11 top spots. Overall, what came across most strongly was the extent to which the cool climate of the valley, aided and abetted by proximity to the Pacific Ocean, produced truly delicious wines of excellent fragrance, freshness, energy and charming drinkability, closer in style to red Burgundy than any other Pinot Noir region I can think of; not California, not Australia, not New Zealand, not Germany. Oregon Pinot Noir has its very own
distinctive character. More often than not they are wines of beguiling floral and fruit fragrances, enhanced but not overwhelmed by the judicious use of oak, sumptuous fruit characters in the spectrum of raspberry through cherry and strawberry to darker berry fruit, often with an umami-like, savory dimension derived from the natural acidity that underpins almost every wine. Vintage of course plays a part, and while some of the 2022s are still slightly rough diamonds, yet to fulfil their potential, the thoroughly accessible 2021s and older vintages will test your resolve and challenge you to resist temptation.
fruit suggests the site is a good one, and I should stress that no one need feel short-changed here—it’s a delicious mix of red and black fruits, full of life and zest. 2024–30. | 90 AR | Good, youthful, vivid ruby. This is sweetly perfumed, showing red berry and an undernote of fresh mint; there’s plenty of sweetly ripe dark- cherry fruit to be enjoyed with a hint of oak spice, all buoyed by nicely textured, sinewy tannins and mouthwateringly fresh acidity; overall, this is an attractive, well-made style of Pinot, readily accessible in its youth, but with enough grip and structure to age and even improve in bottle over the next five years. 2024–29. | 92 DW | Sweet, mossy sous-bois and strawberry— we’re in Pinot country. Juicy yet savory; supple tannins and a satisfyingly chewy, subtly aniseed- bitter finish of some intensity. 2024–30. | 92
Cristom Jessie Vineyard Willamette Valley Eola-Amity Hills 2021 (13.5% ABV)
| 91
AJ | Light, clear black-red. Sweet and warm, though with a little less complexity and grain than the very best of its peers. Svelte, lifted cherry fruits. Ditto on the palate: delivers amply, but without the engraving and shadowing and aromatic resonance of the very best of its sub-AVA peers. Lovely fruits, nonetheless. 2024–29. | 89 AR | A youthful mid-ruby in color, this shows an attractive, classic, berry-fruit Pinot Noir fragrance and freshness; the fruit, when you taste it, is delicate and flavorsome, possibly a touch on the lean side (old-timers might say Old World), but extremely well-wrought, with the oak very much in the background and the fruit itself hovering between red-berry sweetness and umami-like savoriness; overall, this is fine-boned and finely balanced, only just a tad dry on the finish, but nothing that a good plate of food wouldn’t enhance. 2024–30. | 93 DW | Sweet, grainy oak and baked strawberry, a little spice, too: intriguing. There’s richness and intensity here, but a certain delicacy of expression all the same in soft-focus style, the finish filled with easy, soft-berry fruitiness. 2024–30. | 92
Ponzi Vineyards Avellana Willamette Valley The Laurelwood District AVA 2021 (13.4% ABV)
| 91
AJ | Dark black-red, with plenty of black in the mix. Much deeper fruits than many. No longer sweet cherry, but pippy raspberry and even a little plum. Exuberant, cleanly defined and enticing. Ample wealth of fruit on the palate, falling like autumn rain on the grateful tongue. It’s sweet—but not too sweet; firm—but not too firm. There’s a savory/earthy note, too, and lushly soft supporting tannins. Spot-on concentration (not too much, once again) makes for gorgeous drinking; Pinot truly at ease with its place. 2024–31. | 93 AR | Medium-ruby in color and starting to show a degree of evolution in the glass. This is quite subtle in its aromatics, coming at you quite shyly with gentle floral notes and a background hint of oak spice, but no less authentically Pinot Noir for all that; and when you taste, it continues
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