God damn that’s a powerful post. Every winemaker should be required to read that once a month.
I am not sure I have read anything that defines the totality of wine in a more succinct way. This is the way it is, and one(meaning wineries) chooses ones path according to how much one is willing to deal with the realities of this post.
Larry, I always appreciate your comments, so please take my response as friendly debate.
I completely disagree with the idea that Saschi and Raj make distinctive wines.
While I appreciate David’s view, and lean that way, my experience has always been that the Domaine de la Cote wines are…plain. Pinot Noir is a hard grape, and I don’t see any disasters in their work, but they’re a long way from Burgundian. Red fruit, decent stem component, lacking any real spine or sense of terroir(kind of like a vinous version of Sam Adams beer).
That’s why my most serious beef with the wines is the quantity of media fawning over them.
The Evening Land wines are not bad, but I liked it a lot more when one of Oregon’s great terroirs was also produced by Evesham Wood, Bethel Heights, Patricia Green, and St. Innocent. For the quality of fruit, the wines are underwhelming.
It’s not typical for me to throw another producer under the bus. But given how much air in the room is sucked up by the personalities at ELV, I feel obligated to say that a Berserker could safely spend money on wines from Ayres, Johan, Evesham Wood, Belle Pente, J. Christopher, Twill, Vincent, Westrey, Thomas, Cristom, Crowley, Dom. Drouhin, Brickhouse, PGC, Bergstrom, Walter Scott, Violin, Biggio-Hamina, Arterberry-Maresh, Morgan-Long, Kelley Fox, etc…and get wines with more soul, and more sense of place, than what ELV is doing. Hell, if you just want great winemaking technique and an untouchable pedigree, you should spend the money on Resonance(nicely made wines).
I have had several of the wines listed. And would be hard pressed to compare them to the ELV wines as I have only had the entry level. I liked it for what it was, good basic PN. Now the Cote wines are a different matter. And I would say the match up quite well with many on your list. Or course that is Cali VS Oregon and not an easy comparison.
Fair enough, a lot of Pinot Noir is according to individual tastes and each producer on my list has had better and worse wines. It’s a complicated conversation as so many of the elements are both subjective and varied.
It’s one of the reasons I referred to my list as having more soul in their wines, rather than being better.
My experience with DDLC is limited to about 10 wines, and all fell into the category of solid but in no way transcendent. C’est la vie.
I have had quite a bit more of the ELV wines, and have developed a distinct dislike for Mark Tarlov based upon the project. The wines are rarely poor and often quite enjoyable in a sleek fruited way, upon release, IMO, but rarely stand out as being superior to other producers in the area.
At the post IPNC Berserker tasting, of older vintages, I have no recollection of them garnering any acclaim in the threads about the tasting. My own experience at the tasting has been that they are most often underwhelming compared to many of the other wines, which to be fair is a very strong line up of producers that I do very much enjoy and most of whom have been making wines in the Willamette Valley for decades. (And not all of these ELV wines were made by the current winemaking team).
Making great Pinot Noir, that soulfully reflects the land is very, very difficult. It also takes years to learn a place, so I don’t want to have this come across as a failure on the part of ELV to make decent wines from Seven Springs(arguably one of Oregon’s Grand Cru sites.) My own wines, were and are a work in progress, acquiring layers and improvements in the cellar over the past 16 years. And I have had meh bottles from probably all of my very favorite producers somewhere along the line.
Mostly my issue here is that I don’t really feel there’s that much separation between these wines and the wines of most other good producers…but the volume of media recognition makes me feel like they should be resetting my dial for greatness every time I have a bottle.
That’s not really Raj and Saschi’s fault. But maybe Oregon needs to have the vineyards codified a la Burgundy, so that we can get a better look at the wines from the perspective of the land and a little less from the storytelling of the winery.
Oh, that’s the meeting I’d like to go to. I can see it going 1 of 2 ways.
“Everyone who owns a Grand Cru site raise their hand.” Everyone raises their hand. “Meeting adjourned.”
“A committee has pre-selected these sites as village level site… (begins to show vineyard names)…and as you can see…” People on the list go insane, break out flame throwers and burn down the building.
Don’t see much room for middle ground.
St. Emilion much?
You are correct…but a guy can dream can’t he?
A truth for all producers and grape varieties. I have had meh wines from Mugneret Gibourg. Not many, but it has happened.
The meh factor has been too consistent with DDLC and EL for me to pursue the wines. I will happily try them if someone else is buying.
Fairly and succinctly put, David. My experiences with the wines have been quite limited—that visit and a couple tastes at a couple FallTacular events. That still doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have gladly walked away with a bottle or two of that Sandhi Bentrock Chard if Steve had gotten a spigot, but it might mean that, away from the moment and with some time, I might not end up liking it as much.
When I do these big trips, I have to do my best to try to capture the whole experience for me. I will readily admit that if I like the person I’m tasting with/who’s showing the wines or if I’m having an animated conversation, there may be an instinctive “uptick” that day for the wines. In the DDLC/Sandhi case, Steve toured me around many of the vineyard sites and we were really getting into soil and drainage and elevation and sun and wind angles and such, so I had what I felt to be a deeper context/connection when I was tasting through the wines. That said, there were some of the wines that I didn’t care for at the tasting.
Thanks to everyone for the vigourous discussion. I love that we can have that on this board!
Sidebar—a Bethel Heights 2014 Aeolian PN was bitchin’ last month.
Marcus,
All very fair points - and I appreciate you taking the time to do so.
And I understand your ‘frustration’ for sure. There are many wineries who get lots of press and recognition beyond perhaps what they should, and in doing so, ‘steal the thunder’ from many other deserving wineries in the same area. I see you feel very strongly about Evening Land and all that has transpired there, and I totally get it. The same thing happens everywhere - certainly it does in my neck of the woods.
As far as what is ‘distinctive’ or not, that I’ll leave alone - for your impressions and mine may be ‘different’ but perhaps neither of our opinions is ‘incorrect’ based on our own experiences.
Cheers.
Ok, I finally had this wine. On PnP it was pretty good. I did not find the acid to be too high at all, it was starting to integrate and I got some limestone flavor on the finish. But yes, the fruit flavor was almost hard candy jolly rancher like. Similar to some very popular beaujolais, but with more structure. From that perspective, I was actually prepared to defend this wine in this thread!
However, after 30 minutes of air and a few sips later, it really did taste too sweet. That hard candy flavor which was merely present on PnP (but not over the stop) started to flesh out more and became too much. We put some extra chilli powder in the chicken stew we made as a result. Otherwise, I don’t think the other flavors of this wine are bad, which made it kind of frustrating. We finished half the bottle.
Maybe this wine will be better in 3-4, I don’t know. Does it actually have residual sugar or is that just the flavor?
A 2009 Mysterious was spectacular earlier this year and a 2008 Nefarious was outstanding last year, so I’m 2 for 2 on -ious wines at the 10 year mark, though both had years left in them.
Thank you. I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to work with some of the best vineyards in Oregon. The “Mysterious” one is amazing vineyard. Just tasted through the very raw (mostly less than 50% ML complete) 2018s this past week and they are simply outrageous (IMO of course).
The 2005 Anniversary Cuvée is in a great spot now too…but clearly has years ahead with good storage.