Yeah, pretty big omissions IMO.
Had a great time this year, I always love to the opportunity to compare my palate with others across a large double blind tasting and it’s awesome to hear directly from producers about how they approach their specific sites and the vintage. 2012s were quite floral and vibrant when primary but really haven’t matured in line with my palate. Definitely a few omissions (I offered Eyrie!) but I enjoyed having some wines that I wouldn’t normally taste included in the mix.
I’m not a huge notes person so I will spare the scribbles, but overall my favorite was the Walter Scott Temperance Hill - it just displayed a little more finesse than other wines were able to pull off at this point in time. The Walter Scott Dumb Ox, Bethel Heights, Scott Paul, and Longplay Lia’s wines also showed quite nicely. Some of the producers that regularly grace my table did not show so well, but alas that’s the fun of the format.
Overall a wonderful day with some nice palate cleanser wines, tasty snacks, and lots of great conversation. Huge thanks to Ian and Archery Summit for hosting! 
I was thinking that exact thing earlier today, with the exception of Thomas which has failed in past events to earn another slot. I purposely did not offer to bring a PG wine, because I assumed it would be well represented.
Really happy to have been able to attend this year. Thanks to everyone who planned, hosted, and contributed.
Overall I felt less that the vintage was “overhyped” and more that I would hold off on opening any more 2012s a few years at least. Most everything was in a fairly primary stage with regards to fruit character. Some were quite pretty, some tightly wound and showing little nuance, but everything I tried again after the initial flights was continuing to improve in texture and complexity as well. For the winery we have opened a few '12s for dinners recently. In each case they have been tight, taken decanting and a bit of time to start opening up, and still been much better day 2. I did bring an '08 Matello Whistling Ridge as a starter wine, and also a suggestion as a vintage to revisit at a future tasting. It was another year that the group tasted right around the 7 year mark, and only now past the 10 year mark has really seemed to open up and start to live up to the possibilities of the vintage.
There were certainly plenty that was big and a little awkward/blockish, the vintage was obviously relatively warm, but really not exceptionally so. Mostly I seem to remember that yields were quite small, and after two cool vintages back to back maybe some producers were either really happy to have a year where they could get a little riper style, or were caught off guard by how quickly the fruit moved ahead.
Flight 1, Ribbon Ridge: I felt both the Goodfellow wines showed quite well, though the room seemed split on the first (Goodfellow Whistling Ridge Vineyard). Definitely showing more bright strawberry and spice and less of the depth of the Heritage (wine #2). (In the interest of full disclosure I do work with Marcus at Goodfellow, although I was not involved with the '12 vintage beyond a little cellar labor and helping to bottle.)
The Art & Science Armstrong Vineyard was quite a bit weightier but with a really fascinating blueberry olive mixture of fruit and savory. The two Seven of Hearts to round it out were also quite nice, both from Armstrong Vineyard, and both toward bright red fruit and spice.
I understand the idea behind comparing multiple bottlings from the same vineyard, but I would have happily swapped with someone to get a little more diversity in this flight. Brick House, PGC, Ayres, Beaux Freres…
Flight 2, Eola-Amity: For me the Walter Scott Temperance Hill was a pretty clear stand out. Initially a bit of a funky note that moved to blue floral and umami tones, then juicy red fruit and continuing a distinct savory note on the palate. There were interesting notes to the rest of the wines, and of the bigger style I preferred these as a whole to the wines in the Dundee Hills, and certainly to the Yamhill-Carlton flights. On a whole they seemed to have more structure to hold up to the fruit, and had more savory or non-fruit characteristics included.
Flight 3, Yamhill-Carlton: This flight was a little hard for me. Again, the wines are young, but the ripeness was hard for me to get over. My favorite of the cube project was the one from Lincourt (winemaker Leslie Renaud) that had the supposed water add (lower ABV with identical fruit). Still presented as big and rich aromatically, but was significantly juicier in the palate.
Flight 4, Eola-Amity & Chehalem AVAs: I thought both the Walter Scott and the Bethel Heights showed well, just dense and wound up. Discussion at the table as to whether the Bethel Heights might be corked, which I did not get aromatically but would account for the harsher tannins on the finish. I thought the Longplay and the Beckham Estate were both a little more available, with Longplay showing strawberry, spice and dry extract, and Beckham distinctly darker notes of black current and gingerbread. As has been mentioned, the Medici was flawed, both bottles completely oxidized (apparently under glass stopper, found out later).
Flight 5, Dundee pt.1: All big and sweet fruited, the Scott Paul Le Paulee stood out for its liveliness, juicy strawberry dust and spice. It turned out this was a Willamette Valley bottling and not specific to the Dundee Hills, at this point in the tasting it was a refreshing break. All the wines in the flight seemed well made, firm tannins and capsicum on the Arterberry Maresh, Marsh Vineyard, but overall a great deal of rich red fruit throughout the line up.
Flight 6, Eola-Amity 2 & Johan: The first three wines, while still having weight and richness, were for me a return to more interesting savory aromas in with the fruit. I got tobacco and cigar on the two Johans, and seem to be the only one to prefer the 3 Barrel to the the Nils? To me the 3 Barrel seemed substantially more elegant , especially as the two started to open up. The Vincent, Crowley Station maybe did have just a hint of either reduction or brett, but it added a savory intrigue to the purple fruit and floral aspects. Seemed much more dialed back than many from the day. Hoping the Cristom Louise was just an off bottle, Cristom Sommers Reserve was pretty monolithic, but I didn’t get a chance to come back to it later to see if it had evolved at all.
Flight 7, Dundee pt. 2: Thought both Westrey’s showed well. Simple, spice, strawberry and mineral for the Oracle, weightier, denser and more serious for the Abby Ridge. The Cameron wines for a bit both showed really only reduction. The Abby Ridge started to evolve into aromas of oyster shell and strawberry with time, the Reserve not as much (though I didn’t get to try it again after the initial flight). The Archery Summit was chewy, dried strawberry and tobacco, hard to taste right after both the Cameron wines.
Again, I also would have loved to have seen more producers represented. While interesting as a separate thing, I don’t think that doubling up producers on a single vineyard, or using things like the cube project is more valuable for a vintage retrospective than a wide swath of Oregon wines from different producers. It can be interesting to see two completely different sites from one producer for sure, but not at the expense of something from one of the other great producers of Oregon. Not sure how much this can be shifted in a blind tasting where the wines were volunteered, but I am happy to do what I can to search out and trade for wines in the future.
Memory from a past Throwdown.
The thing that has always stood out to me with these tastings is that the wines don’t necessarily showcase a complete view of a vintage, since the producers tend to be the ones that fall within a certain taste profile, which is to be expected when the wines are brought from the participant’s personal cellars. I’d be curious to see how views of a vintage overall would shift if more of the “commercial” wineries were included (read Sokol Blosser, Erath, Rex Hill, Willakenzie, etc). Then again, it could also reinforce some of the issues with the warmer vintages.
I guess I’m just echoing Megan’s point about looking for a bit more diversity in the producers included. Then again, will you ever have enough diversity when you can only taste so many wines and there are so many wineries in the valley? And who am I to say anything when I haven’t participated in a few years?
If nothing else, kudos to those that have been keeping this annual tasting going for so long. Who knew it would become what it is when we just got together to see if '07s really were shitty or not.
Glad the tasting worked out well for you all. I miss attending but it always falls on my anniversary. I was not a fan of '12 on release. Looking over recent notes my best bottles from the vintage have been DDO, Eyrie, and Matello Souris. I think if you have any of those you can open them and expect something very, very good with a little air.
Sorry I could not make it (I believe for the 5th consecutive year). As the winery has evolved and what I do here has changed my time has become basically either utterly consumed or highly unpredictable right at this very time of year. We bottled all day Monday, I worked all weekend on bottling and moving shit around projects and there wasn’t going to be any way for me to take the day off. This is the time of year where we bottle our largest bottling (5-6,000 cases) and with what we currently work with and the space limitations we currently face the project is onerous. Hopefully next year both are alleviated to an extent. Working on it at present! I do think our 2012s were as good as any vintage we had produced with maybe the 2016s (and 2017s and 2018s) sneaking past it. Again, would not characterize it as a warm vintage but that’s me.
IPNC will give you a broader look at a given vintage…typically younger vintages (2 - 3 years). And yes, the attendees are serious Pinot geeks…so their wines tend to be a little more “AFWE” than average. Nevertheless, I’ve found these “Throwdowns” yield impressions that are indicative of general vintage characteristics…with plenty of individual surprises. What you don’t often (or ever) see at IPNC is such a broad swath of Pinots…several years out. All in all it’s a great way to celebrate Oregon Pinots, the memory of Bob Wood and the passion that these wines/winemakers generate.
RT
I don’t know how feasible it would be, but it’d be fun to have 3-5 “control” wines that could always be in every tasting. Pick 3-5 different wineries that have been around for 20+ years and have library wines and always have the same 5 bottlings in each event every year.
I don’t really think there is such thing as a control wine. Or if there is I hope to never be involved with making it.
There are lots of great producers in Oregon, I listed a few that I thought should have been included. Not because I think one or the other producer always has to be included (if you think one producer always should be, you should probably just step up and buy a case of wine from them each vintage and set a few aside for the tasting), but because in a tasting that is trying to showcase an entire vintage I would like to see as much range as possible. The same producer from a maximum of two vineyards is great if there is the room, (especially spreading out early/late in the tasting) but I don’t think two wines made by the same person from one site is a good use of available spots. (Or three wines made from a single pick from 3 producers… pick dates are a huge deal.) Multiple wines from one winemaker/pick in a flight just seemed to dominate the conversation on any given flight. Just my take on it.
Also, can you imagine the debate that would ensue to pick just 5!! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Although I was never a fan of the 2012 vintage I did enjoy the tasting . I actually had to buy a few bottles for this event as I only had some solo 2012 bottles in my cellar. Having said that, I enjoyed the event and though many of the wines weren’t to my preference there were several I felt showed rather well. Instead of a deep dive on each specific wine, which I feel better qualified palettes have already done, I will note the wines that I would currently buy if they were available.
Considering the vintage I feel most of the wines would have benefitted from decanting or just by using bigger glasses. That’s not a knock on the stemware, I really appreciate Ian and his crew hosting; I just think most of the wines would have shown better in Burgundy glasses. I tried to make each pouring last for three tastings and was surprised at how much difference I tasted during those three samples even over such a short period of time.
I’ll also echo the sentiment of preferring a broader representation of wineries over the deeper sampling of fewer wineries. Then again everything is subjective, including the following notes of my favorite wines from each flight.
Flight 1
My preference was for both the Goodfellow wines with a slight edge to the Whistling Ridge over the Heritage. This preference may have changed with more time as I felt the Heritage was much tighter than the Whistling Ridge and found myself liking the Heritage more with each sampling. My third choice was Seven of Hearts Armstrong which I initially preferred over the Heritage, but by the end of the flight I preferred the Heritage.
Flight 2
By far my favorite flight with 4 wines I would gladly purchase today: Grouchau and Seven of Hearts Bjornson plus the St Innocent and Walter Scott Temperance Hill. If only allowed to buy one of these four it would be the Walter Scott.
Flight 3
This and the next two flights were my three least favorite flights. There was only two wines I liked, but doubt I would currently buy either. My favorite was the Lincourt Anne Amie with the Shea being my second choice.
Flight 4
The Longplay was the only wine I would seek out to purchase at this point.
Flight 5
Not sure if I was suffering some palette fatigue, but I found most of these too big and lush. The one wine I would possibly buy was the Arterberry Maresh Weber
Flight 6
After a bunch of bread between the flights I enjoyed this more than the previous three flights. I didn’t mind the brett in the Vincent Crowley as it was my favorite wine of this flight. The Cristom Summers was my other preferred wine in this flight
Flight 7
My order of preference was Westrey Oracle followed by the Archery Summit with the Westrey Abbey Ridge being a distant third. Having brought the Westrey Oracle I found it easy to pick from these five wines as I knew it had to be one of them and felt it was the prettiest and softest of the five. I appreciated Ian’s comment about Archery making softer and prettier wines than what is often perceived in the market, as I found the Archery to be very much to my liking. From the previous notes it appears I’m an outlier with my Archery opinion, but I’m wondering if tasting it after both Cameron wines (the first which I felt had too much brett and the second seemed to have VA issues) hurt its showing in this lineup.
Thanks again for all the effort put in by the hosts and organizers!!!
Wait…you weren’t tasting out of Burgundy glasses(or OPN glasses)?
Are you kidding me?
Hi Tom, welcome to Wine Berserkers!!! Good to see you around here!
I agree, my earlier comment was just about getting a bit more diversity than the “normal” general flavor/taste profile that is self selected by the participants, if the goal is to get a broad overview of a vintage. It is hard to do without having 100 wines though, as a person can only taste so much in a day. I also agree that there isn’t a standard set of “control” wines, though now I want to start the debate! 
How would we define “control”? Most consistent (no vintage variation), least consistent (most variation year to year), certain profile (Eyrie vs Domaine Serene). I think we could spend as much time debating actual producers as debating how to define “control”!
Thanks John, I actually signed up a year ago with the intent of posting my notes from the 2007 tasting, but never did get around to posting. Say hi to Sirpa, we are overdue to share some laughs over wine and eats…
Thanks John, I actually signed up a year ago with the intent of posting my notes from the 2007 tasting, but never did get around to posting.
You can still go back and do that.
These are a splendid spectrum of notes and bookmarking for a fine take on the vintage in OR. Special welcome to the board to Shelby and Wil, and belated to Tom P. From these notes, we need to see more posts from you lot!
Kwa heri,
Mike
Yesterday’s Zoom tasting of Walter Scott Dumb Ox was excellent. Entering the tertiary phase with lot of depth.