I completely agree with this. I enjoy our 2011s (and would LOVE to accommodate Rich with another cool vintage) but I really, really love the post rain picked 2013s. Ours are just beginning to move from completely closed to hinting at potential. In the long run, my wines from 2013 will be better than the 07s, but I feel many other producers will feel this also. I am also really happy to sell the 2014s and have plenty of 2013s left for cellaring.
So I’m curious - are you guys saying that 2014 is a “drink now” vintage? Because I certainly didn’t find the 2014 PGC Berserker’s Cuvée to be an overtly open/accessible wine when I tried it.
Bob, it’s gotten harder to make blanket statements about vintages as styles seem to be morphing and producers are doing more to ameliorate warm conditions instead of just “letting it rip”.
2014 was a ripe vintage, but so was 2008…which was so structured that many of the wines are just coming around. Most 2014s will be accessible far sooner, IMHO. Some are open for business now. A fair number of better wines will require patience. Side by side, tasters will probably not mix up too many 2011s and 2014s. 2011 and 2013, trickier call. 2012 vs 2014, total toss up IMHO.
OR is increasingly becoming a producer by producer (and wine by wine) story…kind of like Burgundy.
RT
I am planning on putting an '08 Bishop Creek into a tasting tomorrow night. Is this a good decision or does the wine require more years? I’m planning to decant it around noon for an evening event. Any guidance is appreciated.
Bishop Creek is the one wine Marcus makes that I never bothered buying since I saw “Yamhill-Carlton” and assumed it would be too big boned and not to my liking. But that was short sighted and ignored who was making the wine. I tried a '12 recently and it was delicious.
Craig, if you do decide to open the '08 Bishop Creek, please post a note (either here or if you use CT, that works too). I’ve got a couple bottles and I would be appreciative of the data point.
In speaking of the 2008 Souris, Marcus did say recently that he thought the wine was starting to enter the “window”, but that it did need some air to come around/open up.
Richard touched on this already but, in my humble opinion, the good producers tend to consistently make highly accessible wine for their lower end bottlings in vintages like '12 or '14. I would say that when you’re talking about SVD bottlings, the '14s are slightly more accessible compared to an '11 or '13 but not quite like the blends.
I’m assuming that there’s two big reasons for this. Firstly, the point of a $20 bottle is higher producer, higher exposure, targeting the average consumer. So stylistically, it’s made to be accessible. Then you add an abundance of high quality fruit in riper vintages that allows winemakers to use better fruit than they normally would use. I know white rose had a bunch of left over good grapes that went into their black thorn label and it is a helluva wine at $20.
I bought a significant amount '14 of these wines just for daily drinkers:
J. Christopher’s “JJ” at $17
Cameron WV $20
Goodfellow WV, Matello WV $22 ish
White Rose Black Thorn $20
For 2013, I didn’t buy much of any lower end bottlings from these producers until recently. Marcus’s 2013 Goodfellow wine was really closed down and thin for my palate about a year ago and then I tried it about 4 months ago and I hardly recognized the wine. The body had significantly improved and the nose was opening up. In 3 to 5 more years I bet it will be REALLY good.
+1 to Rich’s thoughts. Also, I generally think that with my wines I am loading the vineyard designates with more tightly wound and less fruit driven barrels in order to showcase the terroir, while the Willamette Valley bottling tends to get the more open knit barrels. For the Goodfellow wines, the Willamette Valley is often prettier and more available than the SVDs are and 2014 started off that way.
2014 is a pretty warm vintage and had bigger cluster with LOTS of berries, so the stems and skins are just a little less impactful. There is a juicy richness impacting the wines on a base level that winemaking could balance but not overcome. The 2014 Durant is really pretty, which is early for our wines, but still has lovely structure, and perhaps a bit more flesh than Mr. Trimpi would find ideal.
2013 Willamette Valley is my kind of vintage. Like Brandon said, the 2013 Goodfellow WV was thin and lacking fruit for about a year. I think of good cool vintage Pinot Noir as being similar to a great curveball, only in the strike zone as it crosses the plate. (And requiring good patience to hit)
I also bought a chunk of 14 Evesham Wood WV PN. At $21/btl it was delicious and very easy to open.
Well put. What types of vintages would you acribe to other typical pitches, fastball, changeup, slider (knuckleball, splitter)?
I think in general that Bishop Creek is big boned. It’s been a while since I had the 2008, but it wasn’t light on his feet. I think the the site influences that each year.
No, it was not light on it’s feet. It’s pretty rare for Yamhill Carlton vineyard to produce elegant wines that are light on their feet. Outside of Belle Pente, nothing comes to mind. The 2008 is definitely a darker, deeper wine, true to the terroir and definitely in the window now. It benefitted from the late growing season and has developed some very attractive earth and forest floor notes while still having a range of blue and purple fruits. I definitely feel Yamhill Carlton vineyards benefit from having Wadensville planted, it’s a very pretty/elegant clone, and the 2008 is almost all Wadensville.
This took a bit of thought but here goes.
Hot vintages are more like knuckleballs. The temptation to equate heat to a fastball doesn’t really hold true. Mostly hot vintages look like they’ll be easy to hit, then there’s usually a big stage of feeling they’re out of the strike zone. People say things like, “these are falling apart”, “over the top”, “no acid” etc. But often the wines seem to drop back into a nice place at some point…but not always…and without any real consistency of when. I think there’s a fair amount of called strikes with hot vintages as batters let the wines go by without taking a cut.(If I didn’t make wine and have these vintages in the cellar I would not be arguing about the merits of 06 and 09 Oregon wines now, they did not seem like wines I like, but my 09 Willamette Valley is over performing my expectations right now.
I think the moderate vintages are like fastballs. 99 and 02 Burgundy are good examples. 02 Oregon. The wines are just always drinking well, there’s fruit at every stage, and even if you swing a little early or a little late the ball carries because of the speed of the pitch.
Not sure if these are good analogies but it is fun to try and line them up.
Thank you!
Thought provoking.
How does he pull it off? Although his ripe vintage Pinots have some horsepower, there’s always something classy. I believe Brian uses quite a bit of Pommard and Wadenswil in his Estate wines.
RT
Lenne? Et Fille?
Biggio Hamina Deux Vert?
P Hickner
My DV’s are hard as nails for 4 or 5 years…
Sorry Peter, I am sure there are plenty of exceptions to my thought. I should have said “In my experience,”.
I haven’t had enough Lenné wines to know. Todd’s Deux Vert Pinot Noirs are not anything resembling Shea vineyard type offerings but they are quite tannic and structured when young. (The Syrah is light on it’s feet. But my assessment was of Y-C Pinot Noir.)
Et Fille is another that I just don’t drink enough to see the same elegance
that so Brian seems to capture.