Do tell more 
Drinking nicely now? Or one to wait a bit on?
Definitely wait. It’s got a pretty fair tannic spine, and while it has the depth to support it I think five+ years will be much more rewarding.
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I don’t know, I might get hit by a bus tomorrow so I better try one now
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Just realized I forgot to post my actual note on the wine above:
- 2021 Goodfellow Family Cellars Pinot Noir Heritage No. 18 Temperance Hill - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley, Eola - Amity Hills (5/5/2024)
Curiosity got the best of me, and the first thing I will say is do not let it get the best of you. This wine needs a lot of time. It has the depth to handle several years of aging, so no worries about putting it aside for a while. That said the wine is compelling, even given its current colicky infant stage of life. Fruit is darker than in most of the Goodfellow Pinots I have tried, though it should be noted that most of those have not been Eola-Amity AVA wines. What is striking is the tannin profile, which skews more towards a stern Burgundy (e.g., Pommard or a tight Gevrey). I like that as I prefer some tannic structure in Pinot Noir, so long as it has the stuffing to age, which this wine does. I'll defer opening any more of this for at least 5-7 years, maybe longer if I can exercise any of my limited patience.
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Thanks for the note David. I just opened a 2017 Heritage N.10 and thought it needed a couple more years in bottle.
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For some upfront context, my experience with WV Pinot Noir and my experience with Chardonnay in general has been pretty hit or miss, at least until recently when I decided to finally do a deep dive based on fellow WB recommendations. It didn’t take long for me to become hooked! As part of my newfound excitement for the region, I reached out to @Marcus_Goodfellow and ordered a case to see what all the fuss was about. As soon as it arrived I eagerly popped the cork on a 2019 Whistling Ridge PN. I knew it was still a baby. I knew it needed more time. But I figured what was the harm? I was pretty taken aback by how tightly coiled it was and by how little pleasure it offered, at least to me, even at five years of age. I was starting to get a little concerned that maybe I made a mistake ordering a full case!
Fast forward to this past weekend when I hosted my small wine group for a WV vs. Burgundy tasting of both PN and Chardonnay. I had a lineup of 12 bottles split between 6 flights with each flight containing one WV and one Burgundy at similar price points… three flights of PN and three flights of Chardonnay. For one of the flights I had a 2016 Maurice Ecard Savigny Les Beaune Les Narbantons going up against a 2014 Goodfellow Bishop Creek. I wanted to give the Goodfellow a chance but was also worried about how it would show up given my experience with the 2019 Whistling Ridge. There are a few Francophile’s in my wine group and given my nature to be the contrarian, was really hoping the WV wines would show favorably.
Not only did the Goodfellow show up well, it was the consensus WOTN out of the Pinots we tasted! Still quite youthful at ten years of age, but was ready to go right out of the gate! I wish I kept better notes, but was so busy playing host that the entire tasting ended up being a blur for me. What I do remember though is that there were some beautiful savory notes that really complemented the red fruit and lifted profile of the wine… and everything was in harmony with each other. It was quite the AHA moment for me. Bravo! Now I just need the patience to let my other bottles rest for the next 5-10 (or more) years!
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Welcome to the club!
Reminds me, I opened a 2022 Berserker Cuvee Chardonnay a couple days ago and just finished now. I may prefer the 2021 bottling for its raciness but this is still quite delicious.
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In other words, it’s a 93? 
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I agree with you after drinking both recently, but wonder if the 2022 will put on weight with time. 
The 2022 Berserker Cuvee we opened about a week ago was still working it’s way out of bottle shock, and showed a very distinct reductive streak. The fruit was muted for the first couple of days but as it was open for 3-4 days it was really fun to watch. Very old-world circa 1995.
The Diam 30s are definitely restrictive and I think it will fill in quite a bit over the next year or two.
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I opened both a 2022 and 2021 Berserker Cuvee Chard in the past couple of weeks. I certainly have less experience with the wines than Marcus, but also concluded that the extra year of aging probably made a larger difference at present than the vintage. I’m happy with the 2022 but it did seem to be sorting itself out and it’s showing the reduction more than the 2021. Don’t really have an opinion on which I’ll prefer in a few years.
-Al
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Meanwhile, the 2018 Durant Chard is in a great spot now for PnP pleasure. Very pure, refined fruit and quite a distinct expression compared to Whistling Ridge.
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2019 Goodfellow Family Cellars Chardonnay Whistling Ridge Vineyard was excellent with halibut!
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I thought you stopped buying wine since you’re living on a fixed income. 
Can anyone with more experience than me help me understand how typical this fizziness is of a very young sparkling wine? If you opened a quality grower Champagne only just a couple months after disgorgement, would it have a similar soda-like fizziness?
My working assumption is that things will settle down in the bottle after a year or so, but I don’t have the experience to know for sure.
There are many factors. The amount of dissolved CO2, sugar, viscosity, temperature, glass shape and glass cleanliness.
Want fine bubbles that last? Serve very chilled in an extremely clean, narrow flute.
I mostly drink from a white wine stem and a sparkler can basically go flat in 10 minutes.
I’m in the camp that fine bubbles are not a sign of quality. Like many declarations in the wine world, that’s folklore.
https://www.wineanorak.com/wineblog/wine-science/on-champagne-bubbles
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We’ve opened a few of these and, as I noted upthread, it seems to be the most in shock of the three cuvees.
Dosage is 2.5 g/l, and while I often feel that sticks out a little, the last bottle I opened felt drier. It’s definitely the most coiled, and mid-evolution wine.
Bubbles, for me, are aggressive in the first few minutes but settle down reasonably quickly. I’d also say that I find that to be true of most recently disgorged cuvees I’ve run into (most recent was a new bottling of the LB Longitude). Though I do also think that longer time on lees in bottle helps as well.
I haven’t really seen much reduction here, but it is a younger cuvee compared to most champagne houses. We’ll be able to close the gap for aging in bottle with future cuvees and I’m excited to see how that affects those releases.
But for now, for anyone really desiring to open a bottle, start with the Blanc de Blanc cuvees and drink them over several days. A recent pair of Durant bottles opened two days apart, showed the wine open for 5 days more in the key of champagne than the wine open for three days.
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Ok!
Houston, we have a problem. I can count on perhaps 1 or 2 fingers the number of Goodfellow bottles I’ve been able to stretch into day 2.
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Open all 3 at once, and drink 1/3 of each of them on day 1 
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Then I am sure you shared my reaction with a “Huh?” to that quote. I can count on 1-2 fingers the times a bottle of bubbles from anywhere has lasted more than 90 minutes.
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