Willamette Valley— WA Sneak Peek at the 2019s

I thought Erin Brooks captured the vintage well in her short WA piece yesterday…. Many of the wines I’ve tried from favorite wine makers have been magical (already).

“ The 2019 vintage in the Willamette Valley marks a climactic, and stylistic, break from the string of warm vintages that defined much of the last decade. Unusually cool, wet weather through September and October was the pivotal influence on style this vintage. The 2019s are light-bodied and delicately styled, with the best wines offering ethereal, highly detailed perfumes—a coin flip from the gregarious 2018s, which have powerful, ripe fruits and fuller frames. I tasted several hundred wines on a two-week trip this November and was stunned by the best 2019s, many of which are the best examples I’ve tasted from a particular producer or vineyard. The best wines offer exceptional purity and aromatic complexity. They are intense yet weightless, with seamless tannins and energetic acidity. Although they don’t offer the sheer power or concentration of the 2018s, I suspect they will be just as long-lived, with all that detail and verve……” Erin Brooks, Dec 16, WA

Very high praise for Jim Maresh’s new project, Tan Fruit

Intrigued about this project - can’t seem to find much about it. Care to share?

Didn’t submit wines. No idea who she is and likely it will be yet again another reviewer for the WA whatever the next vintage is they decide to have someone around to review.

I equally don’t know anything about the project. I also couldn’t find anything about it outside of the TWA article. Maybe some of the Oregonian Berserkers can share some insight into it.

The 2019s I tried during our visit were stellar, and especially play well to the styles of producers who have a lighter and more elegant touch. Hopefully with the bones for long-term aging too.

I was a little disappointed in the report. One of the things I respected about Erin was that she was a little stingier with her scores than the other reviewers at WA: a 95 from her was very high praise. This limited report was sprinkled liberally with 97s and 98s. I have little doubt the 2019s appealed to her for all the right reasons, but really?

That was certainly a really narrow rating band from Erin. Of 111 wines she tasted, 69 were rated 96 and over

Not sure if this reflects a change in her scoring range, or if it just means she really enjoyed the wines. We’ll have to wait and see.

I’d be curious to see the distribution of scores from various professional critics.

Presumably, she will be publishing a much broader report covering many more producers and wines.

“Included in this report is a sneak peek of just over 100 of my favorite selections from the 2019 vintage.”

Agreed. She will soon be gone and replaced by Todd Hamina. He will give your and Marcus’ wines terrible scores…

Not a broad sampling of wines from both 18 and 19 but from what I have had I think she summed it up really well.

I wonder if some of you said the same things about William Kelly a few years ago

Tom

Since I have a little first-hand knowledge, I will chime in about Jim Maresh’s Tan Fruit wines. This is his new vineyard-designate chardonnay program from not-old-vines sources, including Oak Grove Vineyard in Eola Hills, Vojtilla Vineyard on Parrett Mountain in the Chehalem Mountains AVA (right on the Yamhill County/Clackamas County line) and, in the 2019 vintage, our DUX Vineyard in Dundee Hills (he previously made DUX chardonnay under his Arterberry Maresh label in 2016 and 2017). If I am not mistaken, Tan Fruit will also have a Maresh Vineyard chardonnay from his younger vines there while still crafting Arterberry Maresh “Maresh Vineyard” chardonnay from his old vines. (I have not read the WA article, so am not aware of what wines were submitted/reviewed). Ken and Erica at Walter Scott used to produce wonderful chardonnay from Vojtilla; Jim’s will surely be outstanding as well. He likes our Draper Selection fruit alot and intends to take cuttings from DUX for a new vineyard block that he is planning at his property on Worden Hill Road. With all of the fruit sources that he now has, Jim stopped taking our chardonnay after the 2019; that fruit is now going to Kelley Fox Wines and we are excited to try her 2021 DUX chardonnay from barrel next year.

Was hoping you’d chime in Mark, thanks for the info!

The sample deadline was the first week of November (2021) as I recall and this is just Erin’s initial take on the vintage. I appreciate that Erin 1) took the time and effort to visit producers for the vintage summary and the initial “sneak peek”; and 2) appreciates a cool vintage as evidenced in her narrative and the wine reviews (many critics don’t, or at least their reviews are more negative/lower for cooler vintages).

The full set of wine reviews from all submissions typically publishes in the Spring (however that did not happen last year due to “COVID circumstances” according to Erin). Erin indicated to me that both the 2018 and 2019 tasting notes will publish together this Spring.

I’m going to agree with Andy. She tasted a lot of wines while she was here, and these are really just her absolute highlights.

While the scores are very high, the wines that I have tried from the vintage are very good. I won’t speak to what should be 95+, or whether scores should be “recalibrated”.

This is not a traditional “blockbuster” vintage at all. It’s great to see wines with elegance seeing scores typically reserved for big fruit years. And since this is Erin’s 4th year in a row of reviewing Oregon, she is the most consistent reviewer of the Willamette Valley for WA in quite a while.

As I noted myself, any judgement of Erin as a critic and her scores (to the extent there is any) is not something that can be done at the moment and only time will tell. So I agree with everything you and Andy are saying Marcus.

Erin seems to have a pretty good pulse on the OR wine industry. Certainly a critic that has been extensively tasting through the WV and writing about it (I can’t think of many other critics covering as much of WV as her currently). I look forward to reading her full report on the 2019 OR wines she tasted in the near future.

Walter Scott Vojtilla is one of the best OR Chardonnays I have tasted, starting with the 12 barrel.

Agreed about coverage, but it’s a low bar to clear to surpass most coverage of WV wines.

Josh Raynolds is probably the most experienced critic writing about the WV, and does an excellent job. The biggest issue in review of the willamette Valley, is that critics cover SO MUCH GROUND. As a rule, they are overwhelmed with samples just from Oregon and also cover other regions of the wine world as well. Most visit for 2-3 weeks, have a whirlwind schedule, and then head out to work through a mountain of notes.

Given the dearth of reference works, there’s no real way to learn about the Willamette Valley, in depth, without being here. And cramming for two weeks just isn’t a great way to see things.

I don’t have a better solution. We need more local writing, and it would probably be helpful to have more tastsings for critics built around AVAs and on aged wines.

Unfortunately the prevailing thought historically appears to be that the WV didn’t seem to demand as much boots on the ground as other wine regions; and that critics could cover the relevant parts for consumers with a short trip.

I think that in part reflects some old beliefs about consumer preferences for one region over another. Though as enthusiasm for OR wines has grown, and continues to grow, hopefully so too does the demand for more extensive, and in depth coverage of the region.

More structured events and opportunitirs to taste AVA and aged examples of OR wines could certainly help in fascinating critics expand the coverage of OR wines.

It’s too soon to divulge much information right now. Stay tuned!