This wine is a great example of how frustrating it can be to see how the trade relies on binary vintage perceptions to sell wine. Because of the vintage rain, the 2007 Oregon Pinots have become perceived as light, dilute and weedy. Those wines certainly exist (the worst Willamette 07s remind me of 04 Red Burgundy in the brackish, green flavors), but there are many worthy wines that deserve attention, and this is one of them.
Cool aromas of mint, raspberry and blackberry. Soy and soil in the background. Fresh fruit. Just enough acidity to give this very pretty sweep towards a long finish. Velvety texture and a medium body. Raspberry and blackberry fruit. A hint of caramel in the middle. Open knit and enjoyable now. Not built for the long haul, but it’s delicious now.
Thanks for the note, Jim. Your comments are spot-on. I don’t buy PA every year; however, IMHO, '07 was one of the years to buy. For my taste, the Dussin Vineyard Pinot Noir was the pick of the litter.
There is that. Dussin is undoubtedly better value.
After tasting through a lot of Oregon Pinots last week, I was surprised by the quality of many 07s. When they fail, yuck. When they work, they can be quite beautiful wines for the short/medium-term, and I met a lot of winemakers who were rightfully proud of what they pulled off that year.
I believe Jim’s comments are dead on. Here is the problem for me with the 07s. They are such a crap shoot. The issue is not winery or winemaker to winemaker, the issue is vineyard to vineyard. Some wineries turned out some delightful 07s while also turning out some dogs! I haven’t seen anyone turn out great 07s across the board, for my tastes.
There are just too many great wines out there, from the 07 vintage, CA and CdPs come quickly to mind, to invest in crap shoots. My inventory of cabs was starting to diminish and the later 05s and 07s gave me a chance to catch up. I have a signficant cellar of pinots and have bought heavily into the 08 vintage. So my 07 Oregon pinot buys have primarily been either from the wine clubs or a few drink now wines along the way. Perhaps 20% of my normal yearly purchases of Oregon pinots. Far too many excellent 05s still sitting on the shelves to be had at discount to go crap shooting.
Enjoyed most of the Penner-Ash 07 line-up (atleast those they were pouring) but I’ve often found the style a bit polished with prices to match. Lovely winery and tasting room.
I’ve found that the pricing on '07 is attractive enough to try, and I’ve liked most of what I have - selectively - tried. You seem to indicate that you can’t count on style with this vintage, but I have found that those producers who enjoy working with delicate vintages made very nice wines. No crap shoot for me, and as Jim said, great for drinking now.
Dug through my notes from last year. The 07 WV PN was showing pretty well (feminine) but the finish was still working through some youthful angst. Similar back end impressions on the clearly more flavorful Dussin. The Carabella was my P-A wine of the day. There’s no doubt that most OR PNs can and do change appreciably with a little time in the bottle.
Lately I have found more hits than misses (St. Innocent Shea last night) from 07. In some ways, while the bad wines themselves remind me of 04 Red Burgs, the way the wines have developed seems the opposite. Where 04 seemed to get worse with time in bottle, many 07s seem to have sorted themselves out rather nicely. As always, taste before you buy, but I think there will likely be some positive surprises if you like light/medium-bodied Pinot.
For my tastes, I found a number of wine makers that turned out great wines across the board in 2007: Cameron, Brick House, Crowley, Grochau, Winderlea, Eyrie, Panther Creek, and R Stuart were uniformly good in 2007. I’m sure there are others, I didn’t come close to tasting everything out there. I did find a number of wines with the “green meanies” out there (no names - they’re customers and neighbors). Jim is right on - try before you buy, which should be the discipline in all vintages, but particularly in 2007.
Had a Cameron 07 Arley’s Leap at Press last week. Delicious stuff. Strong line-up at JK Carriere, too. Had many good 07s at OPC - most revealing moment was a blind vintage comparison that we thought was 05 to 06 and turned out to be 06 to 07 - the advanced state of some (not all) 06s was a shock for many.
Again, I’m not saying buy blindly, but Oregon 07 is the darkside of vintage hype - many good wines tarred with the “bad vintage” brush. Buying opportunties for savvy consumers. Perfect example of why vintage reports sometimes seem more harmful than good. Jay Stuart Miller took a very Panglossian view of the year. Others killed it. Truth seems to be in the middle.
And +1 on Eyrie, R. Stuart, Winderlea and Panther Creek 07s being solid. Missed the others (not counting the one Cameron), so the lack of +1 is no criticism.
06 was overhyped. A couple years ago I found most to have elements of over-ripeness and too many were downright fat and/or hot. Surprisingly, last year, a number I tasted had somehow improved…but I’m not at all surprised to hear about the premature decline. Any word on 09 and similarities to 06?
Only direct response on his 09s I’ve received came from Dick Shea. He placed his 09s directly between 06 and 08s. Had more of the ripeness of the 06s with the structure and tannins of the 08s. His outlook was for them to be very pleasant early drinking wines while waiting for the 08s to mature.