A friend has been gifted a Salamanzar of 1987 Yamhill Valley Vineyards Estate Reserve Pinot Noir. The provenance is not clear but he thinks it’s probably been upright most if the last several years. The fill level is down about an inch and a half below the short capsule but, of course, the bottle is 25.5” tall so that’s not much. We’ve set it on it’s side for the past few days and so far there doesn’t seem to be any leakage yet.
Anyone have any thoughts on this wine? Familiarity with it or wisdom from similar situations?
The friend is a winemaker so it’s likely, if the wine is still good, he’ll re-bottle it in 750s. Or maybe invite a dozen or so friends for a party.
The first vintage from this estate was an absolutely monumental 1983, which still sits in my brain as one of the finest Oregon Pinot Noirs I have ever tasted, and I still have one bottle left (low fill unfortunately). If I remember right, Bob McRitchie made the first couple vintages (long time Sokol Blosser winemaker - now in North Carolina). I don’t remember how good the '87 vintage was in Oregon - but odds are this could be a real surprise -
Why? It’s been on its side for 4 days now with no leakage. I suppose it isn’t going to change what’s inside at all, but he wanted to see if the cork was dry enough to leak without opening it.
The 1987 vintage was much hyped at the time, but was largely viewed as a disappointment. At the time, very few Oregon wineries did a green harvest, so yields were usually in the 3-5 tons/acre range - generally too high for quality wine given vineyard spacing. Late frosts in 1983 and 1985 had taken care of the need for a green harvest but nothing like that happened in 1987. With the higher yields, the wines were on the insipid side. By 1987, Yamhill Valley Vineyards was getting (young) fruit from their estate vineyard which is on the east facing side of the hill where Momtazi is on the west side. At the time this was considered the bleeding edge of vineyard development, because it is generally a couple degrees cooler than the Dundee Hills through the growing season. I would be skeptical of this bottle, but then, I tasted a 1986 Cameron out of magnum a couple weeks ago that was slightly over the hill but still glorious.
Thomas, I would have no expectations for your 1983 bottle. That was a relatively high pH wine that IMO fell apart after about 5 years. Personally, the Adelsheim and Eyrie were my favorites at the time, though it was hard to find a poor wine from the 1983 vintage.
I have a couple bottles left of the Adelsheim, Ponzi’s regular bottling, Amity’s Winemaker’s Reserve, the lone Yamhill Valley and one Eyrie left from the '83 vintage. I had discovered Oregon with the '80 and '81 vintages, and 1983 really had a lot of hype from the principle wineries that I went nuts as a retailer, pumping them like they were the second coming of Christ. I actually had a bottle of the '83 Yamhill Valley about three years ago, and it was still jammy as hell, a little over-ripe but still showing pretty well. And I have two bottles of Cameron’s first Pinot Noir vintage in that stash as well - the '85. I need to start drinking these babies… holding them mainly for sentimental reasons…