I’ve been eagerly awaiting the trip this past weekend after my wife and I first visited Willamette Valley in December 2021. While the winery visits were excellent, the cold, rainy, and desolate atmosphere that time of year made me determined to come back when things were a bit livelier and the vines were in full vigor. I originally booked this visit to coincide with IPNC weekend, thinking I may attend a couple of the events, but choosing my own adventure was much more rewarding. Getting to reunite with some of our beloved winemakers on Berserkers, and meeting other members offline, made this trip really special.
Friday 7/26/24:
Touched down in PDX after a flight delay and immediately headed to a group tasting at Morgen Long. It was good catching up with Seth, visiting his new(ish) space at Sequitur in Newburg, just up the road from Patricia Green Cellars. He is just as determined and singularly focused on making the best Willamette Valley chardonnay possible as I can remember from when we first visited him, but he’s saved some room in his portfolio for a little experimentation (more below). We tasted through the lineup of his spring 2023 release wines.
2022 Morgen Long Chardonnay Willamette Valley – A blend from 7 vineyards in Willamette Valley (20% Durant Vineyard, 18% Blue Heron Farm, 17% Seven Springs, 16% X Omni, 16% Von Oehsen Vineyard, 7% Witness Tree, 4% Yamhill). 25% new oak. Lemon peel, pear, and a nice blend of chalk and wet rock minerals. I particularly enjoyed the finesse of the minerality as the wine glides across the palate. Bright, lightweight, and playful, but with good depth as well. Showing very well right now with a little air.
2022 Morgen Long Chardonnay Witness Tree Vineyard – New vineyard site for Seth. Young vines (planted 2019) on an east-facing slope in Eola-Amity, earlier ripening than X Omni. Roughly 33% new, 33% once-fill, and 33% twice-filled oak. Tangerine and tropical fruit aromas, with a touch of freshly cut yellow peach, intertwined with cardamom, hazelnut, and barrel spice. More of the orange citrus and peach notes on the palate along with graham cracker and flinty minerals. Creamy, layered, and powerful. Loved where this wine is currently (and my second favorite in the tasting today after X Omni), but its best years are ahead of it.
2022 Morgen Long Chardonnay Temperance Hill – Young vines like Witness Tree. Less matchstick reduction, this saw no new oak (43% once-filled, 43% twice-filled, 14% fourth-filled). Fragrant yellow citrus and Mediterranean spice, with more florals on the nose and palate than the other single vineyard bottlings. Medium-bodied, delicate with refined acidity.
2022 Morgen Long Chardonnay X Omni Vineyard – A blend of two blocks, 70% new oak, 30% once-filled. I think the clonal diversity (15 distinct clones) of this vineyard is what makes it so special. Despite the amount of new oak, it isn’t obtrusive. Sea breeze, lime leaf, ginger, and orange/tangerine Jolly Rancher on the nose and palate. Weightless power and grip, with bristling acidity that provides a nice energy to the orange citrus and saline/rocky minerals.
2022 Morgen Long Chardonnay Eola-Amity Hills – A blend of 33% X Omni and 67% Seven Springs fruit. Nearly 70% once-filled barrels, the balance split evenly between new and third-filled. Not as expressive as the others right now, dominated mostly by lemon citrus and acidity. Has a certain juiciness on the palate.
2021 Morgen Long Chardonnay Eola-Amity Hills Extended Aging – A blend of 33% X Omni Block 5, 33% Koosah Farm, 34% Seven Springs. Held in oak for 12 months (34% new, 33% once-filled, 33% third-filled) then put in stainless steel for 18 months before bottling. Lemon peel, grapefruit, hazelnut, and a touch of honeydew. The most structured wine of the lineup, with powerful and gripping chalky minerality. Give this one some time.
NV Morgen Long Chardonnay Memorie III – Seth will you tell that this (along with Pink Label) are less important parts of the portfolio to him, but I thought this was fabulous. A solera-method blend of chardonnay picked from 10 vineyards, 33% coming from 2022 and 2021 each and the balance in smaller amounts stretching back to 2014. White peach, nectarine, and Juicy Fruit on the nose, with a touch of barrel spice. Yuzu and white peach on the palate intertwined crushed rock minerality. I love how the cut of the fruit and minerality balances the rich mouthfeel (by Seth’s standards) and deep texture of this wine. Complex and incredibly well balanced. Open a bottle now if you have one.
2022 Morgen Long Chardonnay Pink Label – 96% chardonnay split between Seven Springs and Blue Heron Farms, with 4% Sequitur pinot noir lees. Grapefruit, honeysuckle, and a touch of watermelon on the nose and palate balanced by chalky minerals. Tries to be a fun wine but is actually pretty serious, I personally preferred the 2021 vintage of this.
Some additional notes I took about upcoming bottlings/experimentation to look out for:
- He got Koosah Farm fruit again in the 2023 vintage, and will be making a single vineyard bottling (the non-extended age 2021 Eola-Amity Hills was a favorite of mine that vintage and was 100% Koosash fruit).
- Seth is getting some fruit from X Novo in 2024, but likely won’t bottle it as a single vineyard designate.
- In 2024 he is going to make a chardonnay with no oak (100% stainless steel).
- He’s started playing around with making a solera-method version of Pink Label.
After checking into my hotel, I drove down to Hi-Fi Wine Bar in McMinnville to wind down the night with some wine, snacks, and music on a great sound system.
2020 Jean Foillard Morgon Cote du Puy – Spicy cherries, raspberries, violets, and wet organic earth. Juicy, concentrated, and serious with excellent structure. Just delightful.
2021 Martin Woods Pinot Noir Jessie James Vineyard – Slightly subdued nose but spicy and earth-driven. The palate is full of ripe raspberries, cola, nutmeg, and barrel spice. Good concentration of fruit and earth flavors with coarse tannic structure. The perceived sweetness derived from the red fruit and cola is a little much for my palate, but this is still a well-made wine.
Saturday 7/27/24:
My most jampacked day tasting a ridiculous number of wines, but with that I got to hang out with a lot of great people. Due to jetlag I was up pretty early and decided to drive around Eola-Amity and Polk County to visit some vineyards while waiting for my first tasting appointment. Really tested the limits of my Toyota Camry rental, kicking up a ton of dust, but absolutely worth it as the weather was perfect.
My first stop was to see Saul Mutchnick and Vincent Fritszche at their current facility on SE Eola Hills Road. I didn’t realize until getting there that they share their current space with Will Hamilton, who greeted me at the door as he was starting another group’s tasting (poor planning on my part as I had an appointment with Will the next day). Between preparing to bottle 2023s next month and plans for them to move after Vincent bought a place, the cellar was a bit of a mess but you could tell real winemaking happens here.
Saul and Vincent are just so down to earth and fun to visit, both of them so enthusiastic about wine but just as happy to shoot the breeze about anything else. Much of the time was spent joking about Saul’s passion for Friuli whites and financially questionable ideas for introducing more Italian white varietals in the region (ribolla gialla and tocai friulano, anyone?) and happy accidents in winemaking. We tasted through a couple recent releases of their whites and “rosés”, followed by a handful of reds.
2021 Championship Bottle David + Veronica – 70% pinot blanc from Twelve Oaks Vineyard (owned by Anne Amie) and 30% chardonnay from Yamhill. The chardonnay spent a couple days on skins prior to going in barrel to give a little extra texture to the wine. Lemon candy, honeysuckle, a touch of white peach. Refined and refreshing, but with nice dry extract to provide some grip on the palate.
2022 Championship Bottle You + Me + The Moon – 50% pinot gris and 33% chardonnay, both from Dion Vineyard. 17% pinot blanc from Twelve Oaks Vineyard (same as in David + Veronica as well as the Hard Promises bottling). This was better than the bottle I opened shortly after release. Fresh and energetic, with pear and underripe white peach balanced by chalky minerals and a nerve of yellow citrus. Seamlessly glides across the palate with a pleasant finish.
2022 Championship Bottle Hard Promises – 100% pinot blanc from Twelve Oaks Vineyard. The 2023 vintage will sadly be the last vintage of this bottling as Anne Amie is no longer selling the fruit. Yuzu, tangerine peel, white peach, a touch of pear. Chiseled on the palate, with a nice backbone of oyster shell minerality and bristling acidity. Has a bit more cut than I remember the 2021 having.
2021 Championship Bottle Gravity’s Pull – 100% chardonnay from 30+ year old ungrafted vines at Dion Vineyard. Fermented in used oak for 11 months before racking on its lees for 6 months in stainless steel. Green apple, florals, and slate minerals. Nicely concentrated in orchard fruit flavors yet lean and zippy on the palate.
2022 Vincent Pinot Blanc Tardive – Liked this a lot more than the bottle I had 3 months ago. If my notes are correct Vincent said he isn’t making this in 2023. Yuzu, honeysuckle, a touch of white peach and crushed gravel/chalky minerality. Starting to fill in on the palate nicely, poised.
2022 Vincent Chardonnay Tardive – Oodles of lemon/lime spritz, pear, and some matchstick on the nose and palate. Gets a little to the underripe tropical fruit spectrum on the finish with some air, with a saline finish. Mouthwateringly good.
2022 Championship Bottle History Ablaze – A rosato made as an homage to those more serious rosés from Italy and France, jokingly called “Money Ablaze”, but I think he has something really good here. Pinot noir fruit from La Cantera vineyard, spent 18 months in barrel before bottling. Strawberry Jolly Rancher, raspberry, and chalky minerals that linger over a long finish. I appreciated the underbrush of minty herbal tones on the nose and palate, which in conjunction with the fresh acidity provided a little extra brightness to the wine. Worth popping one now while sitting on the beach or your patio during a hot summer day, but this definitely has some aging potential.
2023 Championship Bottle “Boondoggle” – Tasted from tank, going to have a different name on release but is basically a co-ferment of pinot noir, ribolla gialla, and tocai friulano. Got a little more color on it than Saul was hoping for, not sure if he’s going to label this as a white or rosé. Light copper color, peach, apricot, and cantaloupe with some chalky minerals on the palate. Will need time to fill out, curious to see how this turns out.
2021 Championship Bottle Lost Coastlines – Saul will tell you that making pinot noir was low on his priority list, but I think he should reconsider after this debut. It was fun tasting this and its 2022 counterpart side-by-side. 100% pinot noir from Block 8 at Fir Crest Vineyard (same as one of the blocks that Goodfellow previously sourced). Blackberry, red currant, black tea, anise, and a touch of licorice. There’s a nice earthiness and slight juniper character that permeates the wine on the nose and palate. Concentrated on the palate, which is more black fruited in character. The fruit and barrel spice are there but protected by a wall of tannins. Saul mentioned that another group coming in to taste though this was very Burgundian, I can see why. Built to cellar for sure.
2022 Championship Bottle Lost Coastlines – Similar flavor descriptors but straddling the black/red fruit spectrum more compared to the 2021. More approachable for sure, with silkier tannic structure. Drink now with a healthy decant or within a few years while waiting for the 2021 to age.
2022 Vincent Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills – Mostly Zenith Vineyard fruit with some Temperance Hill. Raspberries and sour cherries. Spicy on the palate with notes of cardamom, cinnamon, and barrel spice supporting the tart red fruit notes. Great appellation wine but with a bit more tannic grip than expected for an appellation wine. This could be consumed now but will be better in 3-5 years as the tannins recede and the fruit and spice notes become better integrated.
2021 Vincent Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard – Spicy black cherries, pomegranate, rose petals, sous bois, and moss. Refined yet gripping tannins and stony minerality make this wine one that particularly dries out the palate.
2022 Vincent Pinot Noir Temperance Hill – Similar fruit profile as the Zenith actually, but has a nice green tobacco leaf note and more distinctive sage/dried oregano type herbal quality. There is a hint of violets and lavender on the nose for this as well that I didn’t get from the Zenith. More open-knit with its spicy black fruit on the palate.
2022 Fritzsche Cabernet Sauvignon Bengier Vineyard – Previously known as Vare Vineyard (for you Beta fans out there) in Oak Knoll District. I believe Vincent said Steve Matthiasson farms this vineyard. Classic Napa aromas and flavors of black currant, black cherry, cedar, and a touch of eucalyptus. Kind of compact right now.
My next stop was up north in Gaston to meet with Jonathan at Kelley Fox. We went through many of Kelley’s 2022 single vineyard pinot noirs and some other odds and ends. Jonathan mentioned that Kelley is particularly proud of her 2023 whites and I can see why. Of note, she made 3 pinot blancs this vintage.
Kelley’s 2022s all carry that signature transparency and purity on the palate, but I will mention several seemed a bit quiescent in their fruit character right now. The greenness and spice character was prominent for many of them, the former which I thought was unusual since she doesn’t do much if any stem inclusion. This was also surprising given how others have described 2022 as being more open-knit on release than 2021 was.
2022 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Maresh Vineyard Liminal – Sappy red and black cherries, strawberries, rose petals, and pastille. Vibrant and focused on the palate, with very fine-grained tannins and fresh acidity.
2022 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Maresh Vineyard Golden-Crowned Sparrow Blocks – My favorite of the 2022 single vineyard designates. Similar fruit profile as Liminal but more perfumed with violets and other floral undertones on the nose and more soil-driven complexity overall. Excellent.
2022 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Durant Vineyard – Debut vintage with fruit coming from Bishop Block. Classic Dundee Hills with a Kelley Fox touch. Soft cherry fruit, strawberry, pastille, and a touch of cola and cinnamon on the nose and palate. Slightly more tannic grip and less spicy on the palate than the Maresh bottlings.
2022 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Canary Hill Vineyard – Blackberry, black cherry, violets, a touch of barnyard funk, and sous bois. More concentrated on the nose and palate and fuller in body than the Dundee Hills wines (by Kelley Fox standards). Great structure from the fine-grained tannins and baking spices that build on the finish, yet still retains the freshness of the black fruit.
2022 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Carter Vineyard – This has 30% whole cluster, but I can’t get past the steminess of the wine in its current state. Some vague blackberry and black cherry on the nose, but the palate is all stems and a wall of spice for me right now.
2022 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Shafer Vineyard – Debut vintage of this bottling. After reading Brig’s note on this wine from a week ago I agree it leans most Old World of the lineup. Great balance of raspberry and pomegranate fruit notes with mossy earth and fresh-tilled soil.
2022 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard – Dark red/black fruit, pretty backwards and a tannic beast at the moment. Needs lots of time.
2023 Kelley Fox Gruner Veltliner – I don’t remember much about the flavor profile in this but recall how much I enjoyed the freshness, tension, and acidity this wine had.
2023 Kelley Fox Pinot Blanc Stater Vineyard – The newest pinot blanc in Kelley’s portfolio, and ooh boy now we’re talking. Lemon candy, clementine, white peach, and a touch of hazelnut/nutmeg. Nice glycerine mouthfeel and creaminess, but bright on the palate and lifted by bristling acidity.
2023 Kelley Fox Chardonnay Willamette Valley – Decent entry level chardonnay, mostly yellow citrus and deep flinty minerality on the nose and palate.
2023 Kelley Fox Chardonnay Weber Vineyard – I’m not usually as interested in chardonnay from Dundee Hills, but this was delicious. 100% stainless steel. Refined estery aromas of banana, yellow peach, and Tutti Frutti. With air, tropical fruit notes including pineapple and guava waft from the glass. Expansive on the palate yet poised and elegant, with saline minerality lingering over a long finish.
Just before dinner, I went to the tasting room at Patricia Green Cellars. Jim wasn’t there that day, but the tasting room staff was so welcoming and great to spend the afternoon with. I was very impressed with their knowledge of the myriad bottlings PGC is known for. Special shoutout to Katherine and Abi, I think they deserve a raise 
It was the perfect day for sitting out on the deck overlooking the estate vineyard while tasting through the wines.
2021 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Bishop Block Durant Vineyard – Vibrant raspberry, pomegranate, strawberry, and pastille on the nose. More of a black cherry and pomegranate fruit profile on the palate, with a nice core of earthy minerality and baking spices. Graceful yet carries some serious structure and persistence over a long finish.
2022 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Bishop Block Durant Vineyard – Similar notes as the 2021, but more inviting on the palate now.
2021 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Anderson Family Vineyard – Didn’t get to try the 2022, but that will be the last vintage of this bottling. Ripe raspberry, watermelon Jolly Rancher, bing cherry, and baking spices on the nose and palate. Silky, polished tannins allow this to glide effortlessly across the palate. Probably one of the more food-friendly and earlier drinking 2021s among the wines I tasted.
2021 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Medici Vineyard – I think they said 2022 would be the last vintage of this as well. Fragrant and expressive on the nose with sweet cranberry, pomegranate, and hints of blueberry. Mostly red raspberry and cranberry on the palate, with some wisps of sage and other dried herbs. Silky and polished tannins, has a distinct juiciness on the palate I liked.
2021 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Chehalem Mountain Vineyard Wadensvil Clone – Going away after the 2022 vintage too, which is too bad as I really enjoyed this. Red cherries, raspberry, and rose petals on the nose. This has a nice intermingling of red fruit and red florals on the palate as well, supported by organic soil and baking spice undertones that build over a long finish. Nice structure provided by fine-grained tannins and fresh acidity.
2021 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Coury Clone Estate Vineyard – Spicy is all I can remember about this wine. Stemmy, spicy, with some hints of cherry fruit. Fine tannic structure underneath.
2022 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Weber Vineyard – Pretty and poised. Fragrant red florals, black cherry, cranberry, and dried herbs. Has a lovely core of baking spice balanced by the red fruit character on the palate. A little crunchy, ends on a bitter cranberry finish. Solid tannic grip.
2022 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir La Belle Promenade – The 2021 of this bottling was a favorite of mine for its tanginess and slightly wild side, and this is no different. There will be three bottlings from the 2023 vintage from La Belle Promenade. Black cherry, tart raspberry, plum, sage, and dried herbs on the nose and palate. Creamy texture with silky tannins and tangy acids to provide some freshness to the black fruit.
2021 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Notorious – The epitome of a brooding wine. Deeply perfumed blackberry, boysenberry, black tea, and sarsaparilla. Layers of black fruit on the palate complemented by barrel spice, with a persistently long finish.
I ended the evening atop Whistling Ridge vineyard just a few minutes away from Patty Green. Marcus and Megan convinced its owner Patricia Alvord (still working in the vines at 90 years old if I recall) to host a group of wine industry friends and WBers for a vineyard tour and dinner. Though there were some pinot noirs present, the general theme was bubbles and riesling. The paella was fabulous.
I didn’t take any notes on the wines, but there were a few that stood out as showing really well currently (2010 Evesham Wood Le Puits Sec from magnum, 2008 Matello Souris, 2010 Westrey Abbey Ridge to name a few). As for the rieslings, I contributed a 2015 J.J. Prum Graacher Himmelreich Kabinett and 2016 Von Schubert Maximin Grunhaus Abtsberg Spatlese, both which were showing well but felt the kabinett could benefit from more age as its acid-driven structure needs more time to calm down.
