PSA: Patty Green/Winebid

Jim…please forgive me…I know you hate seeing your wines posted at such low prices…

To those that know & love these wines…there are a lot of great wines at undervalued prices on winebid this week. I’ve always loved the Etzel Block and am looking forward to posting an 8-vintage vertical sometime in the next year or so. I’ll also be posting my note on the 2005 Anniversary Cuvee shortly…it’s worth every penny they’re asking for…and more.

Never know what happens by next Sunday!

I would say if people were interested in getting ahold of some wines with age on them that the 2006 Anden and Bonshaw bottlings I know are in terrific shape and will be long-lived wines even beyond this point. The Balcombe Vineyard, Block 1B bottlings are all nicely priced now and all of those vintages are showing well. Any of the 2005s should be excellent. I think I saw a 2009 Mysterious which we only made 74 cases of if I recall correctly and that wine is amazing. I just had the 2009 Olenik Vineyard Pinot Noir at fellow Berserker Rick Dyer’s house last month and it was absolutely delicious.

Hey, if someone is going to empty their cellar out from what looks like direct purchases from us and you all can benefit from that either by getting wines at nifty prices or getting wines with up to 10 years of bottle age without paying any premium at all I am all good with that! Be interested to know what people end up getting.

Jim, thank you for the update on some of the wines. This looked like such a great chance to get wines that are long-gone.

I got in a little late to get some of the better bottles, but here’s what I got:

4 x 2012 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard Willamette Valley
1 x 2006 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Estate Etzel Block Ribbon Ridge
1 x 2000 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Estate Yamhill County
1 x 2010 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Olenik Vineyard Chehalem Mountains
1 x 2008 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Winderlea Dundee Hills
1 x 2006 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Goldschmidt Vineyard

Cracked open the first of these bottles last night:

2006 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Goldschmidt Vineyard - USA, Oregon, Yamhill County (10/25/2018)
13.5% abv. Acquired recently on WineBid.

Was a bit concerned because of the capsule being stuck on the bottle neck due to what looked like an old seepage that had dried (but was slightly sticky). Indeed the cork was soaked to the top in several spots but with one obvious narrow streak going to what looked like a seepage spot (now dry). Luckily, the cork came out in one piece and with a nice “pop”. There was some funky aroma initially, but that blew off pretty quickly.

Visually, this was dark and slightly cloudy with no sign of bricking.

Just a lovely nose, with fresh fruit bowl and maybe some rhubarb pie aromas. Didn’t exactly fill the room, but was not shy at all.

On the palate, this was dense and burly, showing plenty of ripe fruit with a strong citrus and citrus peel component and a little spicy note. There was also a savory component that I enjoyed. Like many PCG Pinots, this had a fleshy, sappy texture to it, with good depth and slightly sharp acidity. Amazingly, there was absolutely no sediment, even though this seemed to be unfiltered!

This showed very young still, with years ahead of it (as long as the cork holds up). It’s drinking very well now, but I think a few more years will allow this to soften a bit more. I was intending to save the last third of the bottle for the next evening, but my wife and I enjoyed this so much, we ended up finishing it.

Enjoyed this with Chicken Cordon Bleu, steamed broccoli, and Mac 'n Cheese. Good pairing, but not great. Finished the bottle without food over a period of 3 hours or so. (92 pts.)

So far, so good!

Glad to hear they are drinking well! Can’t wait to open a few of them myself.

That’s an exciting list!! So glad that you got some great finds from this. Thank you for sharing the notes.

And another:

2012 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley (11/2/2018)
Some significant stink upon opening this bottle, but most of it blew off fairly quickly. A little remained for a while and needed an hour or so of slow-oxing to fade away.
Nose was showing some dark fruit character but not giving up much at this point.
On the palate, this was really tightly wound up and coiled, with some dense, dark, brooding fruit in a tight core. At this point, a lot of material there, but just not opened up yet. After another hour or so, this started to open up a bit and I was getting some of that signature PGC sappy fruit, but it was still quite tight, so I vacuvin’d and left it at room temp.
The next evening, this had opened up very nicely with more expressive dark aromatics and a more open palate. It was still fairly tightly coiled, but the dense sappy fruit was more prominent and this was drinking very well with chips, garlic hummus, and pesto chicken salad.
Overall, I really enjoyed this and look forward to my remaining 3 bottles, but won’t pop the next one for another year at least.


The brooding character of this bottle seemed very similar to the 2006 Goldschmidt. Are these similar vintages?

Next up: 2000 Estate Yamhill

Not surprised about the quality and relative youthfulness of the 2 wines posted on. I will be surprised if the 2000 Estate is still in good condition. I haven’t had it in years but it just strikes me as perhaps a wine that was not going to survive 20 years for a variety of reasons. Maybe. I know the 2000 Estate Vineyard, Bonshaw Block is still drinking so maybe but I would have a back up bottle on hand in case that wine’s time has come and gone.

Actually Jim, I cracked open the 2000 Estate already last night but left half of the bottle for tonight, so I haven’t written a note yet. I can tell you that it is still in good condition and very enjoyable. The nose is open and outstanding with a little spicy note but outshines the palate. It is all tertiary at this point with an interesting (but not exceptional) flavor profile, but has good focus, balance, and mouthfeel. Cork was soaked pretty uniformly about 90% up with no leakage and came out smoothly but with a “pop”. Full note forthcoming…

Well, that’s good. 2000 was a while ago and the vineyard situation when we bought the property, well, let’s just say it’s a lot different now than it was then. That was our first vintage as PGC, we had just purchased the site, it was our first go round with a marine sedimentary soil vineyard and were largely working with, basically when you come down to it, equipment that another winery with very different ideas about how things worked had purchased. So, that wine lasting this long is a testament to the Ribbon Ridge AVA and how tough wines from there can be.

BTW - thanks for posting this PSA Kirk. I had never purchased anything at auction before, but I have recently started becoming a big fan of PGC and this post convinced me to get a WineBid account. I’ve been having a ton of fun picking up lots of interesting bottles on the cheap these last couple of months!

Appreciate you chiming in, Jim. I’ve been enjoying your wines very much recently (the '13 Berserker Cuvee got me started with PGC). I’ve not experienced any other Pinot producer that lets the grapes/site/vintage do the talking as much as PGC does. Totally dig it and always look forward to the surprises that the next bottle brings!

I picked up 2x of the 07 Balcombe Block 1B and 2x of the 07 Bonshaw in that auction. Haven’t tried either yet but when they arrive I will rectify that situation. The only other PGC wines I’ve had to date are 15 and 16 (Reserve and Old Vine Ribbon Ridge) and I liked both a lot. Planning to visit over Thanksgiving weekend.

Here’s the full note on the 2000 Estate Yamhill:

2000 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Estate Yamhill County - USA, Oregon, Yamhill County (11/4/2018)
Recent purchase from WineBid.

Cork came out a little more easy than I would have hoped, but there was still a little “pop” when it came out. No visible leaks but it was soaked pretty uniformly 90% up the cork.

So much to like about this right now. The aromatics were very pleasing with fresh, ripe fruit bowl and a little kick of spice. On the palate, full and silky mouthfeel, excellent balance, and a focused mid-palate. The fruit had mostly faded, leaving slightly more oak flavors than fruit flavors. Overall, this was very enjoyable to drink, even knowing that its best days were probably 5+ years ago.
Consistent over two evenings (vacuvin’d and refrigerated overnight).

I picked up a half case also and have not had the best of luck yet.

2007 Ana - Clear signs of heat damage with pushed cork and lots of staining. Luckily the wine was alive, but very unbalanced with loads of oak and toast that didn’t quite have the fruit to round it out. The nose was intense at first, seemed very reductive but blew off over a few hours. Who knows what kind of abuse this bottle saw so don’t attribute these comments to anything but possibly poor storage.

2010 - Estate- Really well structured and might need more time to resolve the incredibly bitter stems (I’m assuming). The wine had decent fruit, oak and alcohol balance but the bitterness hit you so hard it really distracted you from enjoying the wine unless paired with food. I don’t know how much oak is used normally but I’ve been struggling to find the oak integrated in these wines.

Up next:

'05 Estate old vine
'06 Goldschmidt vineyard
'10 Reserve

Edited to change my 2010 from Reserve to Estate

EDITED for making a misleading comment in the WRONG THREAD.

Sorry the two wines have not worked out for you. Sounds like the 07 Ana was poorly stored. Nothing we could do about that after the fact. We don’t make an Estate Reserve so I don’t know which wine you are speaking of. We make an Estate and a Reserve but they are separate wines. Since we make so many it is hard to know what specific wine people are referring to when they combine names. Also, while I doubt that either had bret I can say for certain that neither was over $100. The Ana would have been the most expensive regardless of which ever bottling you had and that would have been, at the time, around $40.

If you would like to be more specific that is fine and actually preferred by me. The secondary market for wines is a crap shoot at best especially for non-trophy wines as poor storage is more likely the case with less expensive wines (generalizing, I know) and it sounds like you may have encountered that. We use very little new barrel and wines impacted by poor storage are going to show negative non-fruit characteristics that have nothing to do with the winemaking. Sorry. Sounds like you lucked into a bad second hand batch.

Woa.

Jim, my second comment wasn’t even meant for this thread! I meant to post that in the thread where some guy was asking for “the best” Oregon pinot and someone mentioned Cameron made a $100+ bottle. That was my intent for the brett bomb. I’ll update my posts.

I had the 2010 “Estate” bottling and the '07 Ana. Neither had brett and neither was listed at $100. Also, I wasn’t intending to insinuate anything about the heat damaged bottle and I hope no one else would infer that either. Once it leaves the winery, who knows what happens (I hope most people understand that).

Jim -

Do you find that the really bitter finish tends to fall out or integrate after time? I’ve noticed this exact same thing on a few Cristom wines and have seen it fall out with older wines like '04 - '06 but have had three 2011 Sommers Reserves in the last 3 years and it’s still very apparent. I have three more and am thinking to just ignore them for 5 years minimum.

There were no stems used in the 2010 Reserve. Cannot speak to bitterness as I have not had that wine in years. Would not think of that wine, of all our wines, showing any sort of bittering character so I don’t know what to say there.