Weinbau Paetra Pinot Noir Rose: Salmon pink color with notes of golden raspberry with good acid. Not much of a note, but it was so easy to drink… 
(note: photo more saturated than reality)
Chris, do you like cool climate Nebbiolo? If the answer is yes and you’re not adverse to a new world twist, it’s worth a shot. Made in limited quantities and it takes a few years to integrate IMHO. Word is, it does best in warm vintages (i.e.: 2006). Rick probably knows more details.
RT
Picked this up at the winery after a tasting in 2016. This pours out a medium dark red with little to no bricking. Gave this a decant but not much air time. Opens with ripe red and black cherry, vanilla, a bit on the dense/chewy side (in a good way) with mouth watering acidity and a medium long finish. Still going strong.
I love Alto Piedmonte wines and love Cameron. My gut tells me to get Nebbiolo where it has been grown for 1000 years for the same cost or less. But like PN, it will never take root in OR without support. I’ll grab a bottle or two. Thanks.
Just want to add that if you do open it, allow for 4+ hours of air or a splash decant. I have had it open for 3.5 hours, and it is still improving.
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2018 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Estate Etzel Block - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley, Ribbon Ridge (12/10/2020)
Opened, poured into a decanter, this first glass has had about 30 minutes of air. This wine is Pigeon blood ruby at the core and translucent throughout with about a 3oz. - 4oz. pour in a Grassl Cru stem. Scents of autumnal forest floor, high-toned red fruits, clove, & crushed stone. The palate is a wild ride, starting out very light bodied, as the acidity lengthens out the wine, the body builds in the midpalate just before the fruit crashes in and the tannin slowly rises to a long, dry finish. This wine is bottled under a Diam-30 Cork, and I think that this has the stuffing & structure to last all of that. This is a wine to seek out if you love Oregon Pinot Noir. Highly Recommended!!!
Posted from CellarTracker
I may open a 2008 tomorrow night for a neat look at how 10 years in the bottle brings out something special in these wines.
This is Awesome! Thanks Jim:)
2018 Patricia Green Cellars Estate Vineyard Pinot Noir Ribbon Ridge
The tasting for charity is such a great program, and Jim’s generosity is impossible to ignore. I believe this was purchased during one of the Quarantine sales, and is one of the last survivors!
Opened and poured into a decanter, quite a bit of sediment in the bottle. The color is on the purple side of ruby, with a bit more intensity than some Pinot Noirs from the area. Very beautiful in the glass. I let it sit and get some air for 45 min to an hour.
The nose initially shows off light toast and oak, with vanilla and cedar notes. Those rapidly move to the background, revealing black tea, blue fruit, bramble-y red fruit, and fresh strawberry. Upon tasting, the wine is presents a light body and high acidity, with smooth tannins gently pulling through the palate. The dark blue fruit is the star of the flavors, with the black tea, strawberries, and vanilla playing alongside. Freakin’ Delicious.
Sorry for the indulgent notes, Ribbon Ridge is a favorite of mine, so I gave the notes a little more pizazz than I normally would. I’m also partial to 2018’s over other recent vintages ('16, '17) in the Willamette valley, as the seem a little more balanced and put together now.
Thanks to those donating!
2016 Patricia Green Balcome 2A, Mortimer Cooke Memorial
A special bottling Jim made to honor the owner of Balcome vineyard. As I recall, proceeds went to a Newburg animal shelter that was close to Mortimer’s heart. I am probably opening this way too young, but I have six bottles and the cause is right.
Decanted eight hours. Deep rich nose on opening. Not noticeably changed eight hours later. Classical PGC PN with tons of depth and structure. Pushing 14% it is a bit hot, but comforting for a chilly evening. It seems a wine well suited to the season with lots autumnal character. Pretty damn tannic and bruising right now. Tons of potential locked in a tight box. Yep. Way too young. This needs at least five more years.
Thanks Jim. Thanks David! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Nice. We opened a bottle this week at the winery that had a damaged label and damaged wax and it was just easier to drink it than fix the stuff. I love this wine. 40% of the revenue did go to a local animal shelter (with, afterwards, an unfortunate employee situation). It’s 100% whole cluster. I thought it was drinking but also tight as hell. Love this particular flavor in Pinot where it gets these iodine and bone broth sort of characteristics. It does need 5 years more but for fans of a handful of particular Burg domaines this is potentially a thing. One of my favorite bottling of the past 5 vintages.
2018 Patricia Green Cellars
Freedom Hill Vineyard
Pommard Clone
Was part of my fall club shipment. Intended to let these sleep but I have two so why not!
Anise, the good kind of licorice on the nose. Maybe some allspice.
The first sip is just classic yummy pommard. Dark cherry is the immediate flavor on the palate. Long finish almost a touch spicy. Not sure if the tannin or the alcohol.
Look forward to seeing how this evolved in the decanter over next few hours. Assuming my wife doesn’t drink it too fast!
When I was coming up in wine business I went to a lot of farmers markets and specialty grocery and got a lot of weird looks picking up everything in sight and smelling it, including Durian.
That is probably frowned upon now.
Perfect. I was thinking blood-based iron. I’m very impressed that this is a favorite for you considering the past 5 vintages must equate to 150 different wines.
It will be exciting to see this one grow to maturity. Thanks again.
Damn Joshua! You should comb your hair more often.
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I love 100% whole cluster Pinots. We don’t do a lot of bottling that are actually 100% across the board. Some have 100% whole cluster incorporated into them but only a few since 2014 have been 100% whole cluster in and of themselves.
2017 Biggio Hamina Johnson Ridge Vineyard
Todd said I could hold this another 15 years, but I wanted to be ready for Berserker Day so infanticide it is! Luckily this was good to go, but in an odd way. The nose was incredible out of the gate. All red berries and earth. There was a black pepper note on day 2 that I didn’t notice on day 1 and was gone on day 3, so maybe all those college experiments are catching up to me.
Good acidity, went well with some pseudo Asian bowls the wife made for dinner.
Edit: Santa Claus is comin to town!
Edit 2: Does anyone else feel like they can taste the stems in 100% whole cluster?
2010 PGC Four Winds Vineyard Pinot Noir
I’ve drank plenty of Crowley Four Winds Vineyard Chardonnay, which is great. Despite owning various vintages of Pinot from this vineyard, this is the first one I’ve actually tasted. Decanted half the bottle for about 45 minutes. On first sniff, plentiful red fruits (cherry & cranberry), a touch of earth and what I can only call the “Cameron funk.” I’ve learned over the years that the Cameron funk is either a love it or hate it thing, but I’m firmly in the love it camp. On the palate, the tannins are well integrated. Lithe with plentiful red fruits, earth, spice, and (yes) the Cameron funk, which dissipated over time, but never quite disappeared.
This wine was really in my wheelhouse (if blinded, I would have guessed Cameron’s Arley’s Leap, which is great company IMO). We only planned to drink half the bottle tonight, but this is going down so easy it may not live to see Friday. Wish I had more than this bottle as it has years ahead of it. Kudos Jim!
Pics below of the wine and our rescue, Noci.
I could tell Four Winds Vineyard stories for hours. Seriously. I will attempt to quick take the one most relevant here.
We started farming FW in 1997. Farmed it through 2006 and kept buying the fruit through 2011. So, I know it well. It always had funk. Lots of times it smelled of anise and fennel in fermenter. It was never super fruit driven (the 2008 tastes like Nebbiolo actually). One day, probably back in the 2005ish era, we had a pack of UCD kids come to the winery. We barrel tasted and when we got to the FW I could tell there was some whispering and mumbling going on. I knew what they were thinking and talking about. I said, “what do you think (knowing what the response was going to be)” and finally someone chirped up and said, “we think it has Brett.” I took $100 out of my wallet and put it on the table and said, “I will run a panel on this and if it has an appreciable amount of Brett I will send you all $100, if not you only have to get $100 between you all to send to me.” There were like a dozen of them. No takers.
The difference between school work and winemaking.
You don’t like my Afro?
I sure hope you can taste the stems in 100% whole cluster! Because it’s so much more work than destemmed, or even partially destemmed, fruit that I would cry(shoot myself) if you couldn’t!
