Just out this afternoon:
Interesting write up, seems like a warm vintage overall. Seems Eric thinks a better vintage for Chardonnay compared to Pinot. Also some surprising scores, Brickhouse felt low (haven’t tasted), PGC were generally high although the Lillie’s felt low (haven’t tasted). Curious what others feel about the 2023 vintage.
It was great to see Eric’s take, and a bit surreal (not in a bad way) to see some of the winemakers comments.
Whle Whistling Ridge shares a border with the Beaux Freres vineyard, my take on 2023 there was more like Ben Casteel’s take on 2023 than Mikey Etzel’s. But Whistling Ridge flattens out on top of the ridge and gets very consistent cooling breezes in the late afternoon/evening. There was no dessication at all, and we had remarkably little need for sorting.
We didn’t submit still wines as we had just bottled the Pinot Noirs, they were so shut down, and Chardonnay was still in barrel. I did drop 4 of the sparkling wines off, the 2022 Tsai Blanc de Noirs, the 2022 Whistling Ridge Blanc de Gris, and the two futures wines we pre-released on Berserker Day-NV Temperance Hill Blanc de Blancs and the second cuvee of NV Whistling Ridge Blanc de Blancs. For any Berserkers interested in seeing the reviews, the NV bubbles are all the way to the back of Goodfellow wines Vinous has reviewed (page 4 I think).
It was great to see excellent scores for Walter Scott, Kelley Fox, and PGC. Well deserved and probably no surprise.
Martin woods also received a lot of high scores!
I’m still trying to understand Eric’s scoring, and scoring in general. Given the scores he gave (some) of the 2022 Kelley Fox wines, I thought maybe they didn’t align with his palate, so I was quite surprised to see how well her 2023s did. Do you have a sense of what drives that variance, is it underlying variance in the wine or in the scoring?
I have no sense of that at all. I’ve tasted with and spoke with Eric, and he’s a very good taster and very knowledgeable. But he would have to be the one to define his process.
To be honest, it’s a huge undertaking to cover even a modest sized region like Oregon. Getting notes for well over 1000 wines and sorting out a schedule that sees as many people as you’re able to in 2 weeks. The work ethic is really impressive.
And Evan’s wines are great, I think he deserves the love!
Really enjoyed the report. Cool to see Morgen Long do so well too. Also, it was interesting to see Eric score Walter Scott’s Koosah above X Novo. I really like that wine, so now I’m even more excited to try the 2023.
Looking forward to Erin’s report from the Wine Advocate too - I’m guessing that will be out soon. Would love to read Audrey Frick’s as well, but I can only spend so much on different publications!
I’ll just go with “no comment.”
Anyone have views on which pubs are putting out the ‘most-best’ Oregon coverage? I subscribe to Wine Advocate mostly for WK’s Bordeaux coverage, and find Erin Brooks’s Oregon coverage pretty good but I’d be open to picking up another subscription if there’s a really great option.
I’m a current vinous subscriber. I tried Janice Robinson for a month to check on their oregon coverage and have previously subscribed to Wine Advocate and seen Erin’s coverage. I also read Paul Gregutt and still look through the Prince of Pinot.
My general take, and nothing personal against any of them, is that I liked and found more consistency with Josh Raynolds than with Eric Guido. Some of Eric’s scores are confusing to me. I may be dropping this subscription soon, both because of this and because I’m finding scores less meaningful.
I found more inconsistency with Erin Brooks’ scores, I think she gave the 2021 Arterberry Dundee, their ~$30 wine, a score of 98, and I remember thinking she generally over-scored Arterberry wines. She gave the initial Tan Fruit wine releases very, very high scores. I like Arterberry quite a bit, and drank half a case of the 21 Arterberry Dundee because I like it so much, but it wasn’t a 98 point wine. The 2019 Tan Fruit wines are good to very good, but I think the general consensus is that they were a bit over-hyped.
The Janice Robinson site was informative and they give strong reviews to wines I haven’t had and intend to look into, (Lavinea and Abbott) so it was very useful as an introduction to new producers. But thier review cycle appears to be random tastings and not a big vintage overview. Probably good to keep people signed up, but I tend to purchase a month when the vintage review comes out and drop after, so it’s harder to justify this subscription.
My go to site is Paul Gregutt, I enjoy the in-depth coverage and care that he takes with wines. He also doesn’t do a vintage review, but it’s free.
Prince of Pinot is great for details, their old vineyard article is a staple in my Oregon library. His taste isn’t fully aligned with mine, but again it’s free, wide ranging, and extremely informative.
She’s visiting the area this next week through mid-August, so I am guessing the report will come out in a few months.
It’s interesting to see the Koosah scored higher than the X-Novo, bit both are pretty singluar sites though. Though given how wines are alive and moving, I generally view the score itself as a statement of general quality rather than a comparative margin between wines. Though I understand that the numerical differences lead one to believe that they are comparative, there are so many unaccounted for factors (bottle variation, serving temperature, order of tasting, ambient winery temps, and general mood of the tasters, etc.). I would hazard a guess that most reviewers call it as they see it understanding that they can only review the wines as they are that day. Suckling probably excepted as it seems like he is fairly certain there could never be a variation from his determination…(tongue in cheek, mostly).
I wonder about this in relation to when the wines were bottled as well. I assume some people’s wines are bottled before the next vintage whereas others are either still in barrel or very recently bottled. So these vintage reports are comparing wines that have been in bottle for 6+ months to those that were just bottled. I will say, Eric’s producer notes and tasting notes were very enjoyable and itneresting.
When I tasted the Walter Scott SVD Chardonnays earlier this year, I thought both the Koosah and the Freedom Hill were better than the X Novo.
I completely agree with your take on scores and tend to trust terroir, winemaker, and then my own palate over critic and score, but I still find their scores as interesting data points. I’ve definitely purchased based on scores in the past; one wine in a producers stable might be rated higher than another more famous terroir, and then having the opportunity to try both wines myself, completely regretted my purchase. At the end of the day there is no substitute for trying the wines yourself.
It still boggles my mind how many scores are published that are based on how a barrel sample showed on some random day that hadn’t even finished malo… At least in Oregon you can often try the wines before purchasing in large quantities (unlike Burgundy).
I really like the complexity X Novo delivers on the palate, but I’ve found that I really enjoy the aromatics in Koosah and Freedom Hill and I personally place an outsized importance on the nose of a wine. For me Freedom Hill has consistently outpaced X Novo, but I haven’t made up my mind on Koosah yet. Luckily I’m in the wolf pack so looking forward to digging into all of them at some point!
Thanks so much for the detailed response! Agree that Brooks’s actual scores have been kind of tough to puzzle out particularly vis a vis 2021 (lots of very high 90s scores thrown around) vs. 2022 (significantly lower across the board). Not many wines that I’ve had in both 21 and 22 yet, but the few I have I didn’t think there was a significant drop in quality to the '22. Suspect someone upstairs on the masthead told her to knock everything down a few points next time round after the splashy 21 scores.
And thank you very much for making me aware of Paul Gregutt’s substack. Have now subscribed.
I always think it’s fun looking at Vinous v. Advocate because you do get a bit of consensus on general quality, as you say, but then the highest scoring wines of a group are always different between people, or vintage preferences are skewed reviewer to reviewer. As they are here. I think there are a lot of folks with great palates on this site, but preferences are often different, even among the same wines at the same table at the same time.
I think the Chard aromatics on Freedom hill are some of my favorite.
I also really enjoy Eric’s notes, and tend to use the descriptions more than the scores to figure out purchasing decisions in a specific producers line up. I may use the scores to shore up my idea of the overall quality of work a producer is achieving. But like @Wil_Raley, I start with terroir and producer, my friends, WB comments, and reviewers to work out what I’m buying. Though I do miss Josh Raynolds, he was special.
We also opted not to show Eric our 2023s yet because the Pinot Noirs had been in bottle for two months, and werestill affected by bottling. The Chardonnays were still in barrel and given the strength of my peer group and their amazing wines, we needed to have more time for the wines to rebound.
I like triangulation as well. By reading Vinous, the Advocate, View from the Cellar, and now Dunnuck, the comparison of different views is fun and helpful. Like anyone, I do think different wines resonate with different reviewers.
Do you plan to still submit your 2023s to reviewers once they are ready?
Yes, I emailed Eric to ask if we could ship him a set this fall as weather cools. Erin Brooks is here later in August and, while the wines are painfully young, they are at least emerging from bottle shock. Clive Pursehouse is also working on a vintage article and has asked us to get him the wines as soon as we can.
Though in some ways, I really wish we had been able to see how the wines resonated with Eric while he was here. His vintage report is just fascinating to me, he mentioned the successful wines, for him, in 2023 were often wines that leaned into the elegant nature of the vintage. Ours, unsurprisingly, lean into structure and combined with the near perfect acids(they are so juicy and integrated in 2024) and ethereal fruit, I am just wonderiing how they align.