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1993 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Oregon - USA, Oregon (8/25/2018)
Darker ruby color. Full-blown nose of intense floral notes, schist, iodine, raspberry, earth. Layers of vivacious raspberry and black cherry fruit complicated by limestone and barest hints of char. Lovely acidity and smoothed acidity, leading to a long finish of ripe red berry fruit, stone, and deep soil. This bottle has aged quite differently than the ‘96 Bethel Heights SE Block sampled yesterday. Wide open and fresh from the get-go, it showed as a younger wine. Absolutely delicious. (92 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
93’ was a superior vintage to 96’, drinking 92’and 93’s and they are showing really well now, of course producer is important but there was a lot of good wine made during that period…
Jason
Thanks, that is good information. I have not had the pleasure of drinking that many bottles from the 90’s. Was fortunate to find both bottles recently languishing on a retail shelf and snapped them up. Need to look for more.
Cheers,
Doug
Where did you find older vintages on the shelf? I remember Champion having a bunch of older vintages (now sadly gone) …
We opened an 88’ Adelshiem ‘Elisabeths’ if I remember properly and after about an hour it was delicious…
I’ve opened a number of 90’-92’ Panther Creeks and they have all been really good, mind bending almost.
96’ was a crappy vintage with most of the wines tasting acidic and thin around 06’ and they have finally seem to have come around. I remember opening a single vineyard Ken Wright and it being garbage night 1, my wife refused to drink it… night two I gave her a glass and she said that this is what she wanted from Pinot, when I told her it was the same wine she was dumbfounded… Seems 96’s just needed time to put on weight and round out…
Jason,
Was on vacation in Seaside OR and visited Cannon Beach. Laurel’s Wine Shop in Cannon Beach had both bottles for sale (unicorns both). My tasting of the ‘96 Bethel Heights was interesting in that it took a while to get going but did open up to be a very nice wine. So even now this vintage takes some patience!
Nice to hear an ‘88 is showing well.
Cheers,
Doug
Several of the 1993s I’ve had over the years have been among the best OR pinots I’ve had- DDO Laurene, St. Innocent Seven Springs, Evesham Wood Cuvee J. I don’t think that the quality of 1993 was appreciated until the wines had considerable bottle age. On release there was a lot of hype on the 1994s which were concentrated and many tasted more like syrah than pinot in their early lives.
FYI, there is a Seattle off-line in the works to focus on older OR pinots. Check out the thread. The date hasn’t been finalized yet but it’s looking like late September.
Cheers,
Hal
Hal
That is good to know. This is the only 1993 I have had the good fortune to try. I will be on the lookout for more of these gems, even though they are likely to be rare indeed. Thanks for the info about the offline.
Cheers,
Doug
This is always awesome to see great producer’s wines that age well. Later near the end of September we’re tasting an '89 Windhill against a '90 Jadot Pomard 1er Cru Les Grands Épenots. Hopefully our bottles will show as well as this did.
Kirk,
Yes I agree. Any questions I may have had concerning the aging potential of Oregon Pinot Noir has been resoundingly answered. Should be interesting to compare the Pommard and the Windhill.
Cheers,
Doug
I’ll defend '96 a bit…it created wines with strong acidity, but I didn’t find them to be dried out on acid and therefore love them for the long haul. Agree that '94s were chased, which left '93s in a shadow. '92 created some raisined wines, but there are many that avoided this. These were the vintages that I cut my teeth on. I’ve followed many of the wines from barrel tasting to present, but my stash is dwindling.
Cheers,
fred
Thank you for posting the note, I almost opened my only bottle of this wine last weekend, but ended up bringing a Burg instead, will have to give it a try soon!
The 93’s are among my favorites. We sold this wine when I worked at Grand Cru in Denver. I can say without reservation that the 93 Lizzie helped me jump in to try my hand at wine production.
Also, I had the 89 Wind Hill for harvest lunch in 1999 at Elk Cove. It was beautiful.
The '88-'94 run in Oregon definitely helped turn the fortunes of things here. While not particularly noticeable at the very moment those vintages, the '94 in particular, brought notice, people and financing to Oregon that had not existed previously. Back then everyone was trying to make the best wine possible and while vineyards were sparser, farming less technically perfect, wineries and winery equipment more rustic there was not a rush to make as much cheap wine as possible and the wines from that era stand out as being particularly good now as they have stood the test of time beyond what people expected. The '93s were absolutely poo-pooed upon release (dark, backwards, tannic, savory) and the '94s blew them out of the water (lush, fruit dominant, exciting, flashy) but the combination of the 2 vintages back to back were ultimately a good thing and a good story for Oregon. Simpler times, man.
Fred, Kasey, Todd, Jim,
A lot of history here and lots to learn regarding these formative vintages. Thanks for putting thoughts into written form. Very much enjoyed the perspective.
Cheers,
Doug