Hi Maureen,
I think that your plan of decanting should be perfect. So far the No. 4 hasn’t really thrown any sediment, but the air will definitely be good for it. It’s been a great place recently, a kind of youthful maturity. Nicely complex, still with good fruit and also good tannins. 2015 was a warmer year, so the No. 4 is a little more robust than the typical Goodfellow.
Isn’t that the one and only?
Yes indeed!
We just disgorged the final two bins of this cuvee in late November, along with a new cuvée of the Durant vineyard (base 2022/21), and they will be ready later this spring.
Unfortunately, the next Tsai Blanc de Noir cuvee goes into bottle early next summer, and then will be on the lees for three years.
Well, it’s the only one I own but I wasn’t sure otherwise. Thanks for confirming.
Opened the 2023 Berserker Cuvée Pinot Noir last night. Remarkably translucent, perhaps the most I’ve encountered from Goodfellow, and maybe the palest red wines I’ve seen. Nearly white in the glass, yet delivering surprising depth and intensity. Weightless and precise, with no compromise in power. A textbook example of the style I seek out in Pinot Noir. @Marcus_Goodfellow what do you do differently to achieve this compared to your other wines?
Honestly, nothing. The vintage leans this way, as did 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2017, and 2019 at the time (all of these were similar to your description in their first year under cork/Diam). 2007 and 2013 were aided in their weightless and less densely hued nature by wet vintages. That said, the stems will be holding anthocyanins in the tannin chains, so the 2023s, like the others will gain some color and flesh over time, while staying relatively weightless.
For your purposes, and also my personal preferences, Whistling Ridge is the vineyard that most closely aligns with what you seek. In addition to the 2023 Berserker Cuvee, from 2023 you should consider the Ribbon Ridge (best value and definitely overperforms for the vintage), Whistling Ridge, Heritage No. 23, and the not yet released Bednarik vineyard designate. from 2023. If you come to McMinnville, Thistle has a Goodfellow by the glass that is half Whistling Ridge and half Bednarik. I love it, it is pale in hue but jumps out of the glass aromatically and has that weightlessness, with a mouth watering finish.
I’d encourage you to enjoy the wines early, I don’t see them darkening up immediately, but even the 2019s are gaining some pretty fruit. Though I would really encourage you to explore that vintage now as it comes out of the dumb phase. After 24 hours open, the 2019s generally hit a place that I really love and would describe as almost “distilled” in nature (no alcoholic heat like eau de vie but the clarity of aromatics that comes with really good distilled spirits).
While I love the 2017 vintage as a whole, and think it drinks extremely well right now, they have gained enough weight to be a different beast. But 2017 and 2005 are the two closest parallels to the weightlessness of the 2023s that I can think of. And probably would be my pick for personal favorite vintage of the three different decades (or half decade of the 20s, though 2024 will want to have a say there).
You made a 2023 Ribbon Ridge?
Wow, very insightful, but looks like I didn’t pick up nearly enough of the 23’s to meet my needs. Good thing BD is next week 
.
The 2013 Durant was also pretty pale, lovely in a quieter style.
-Al
Yes, we haven’t officially released it yet. Looking to the Spring. Also a Dundee Hills bottling.
Last night we started in on the remaining half of the bottle of Durant BdB that we opened Saturday night. The bubbles had died down just a touch (though it was still fizzy) but the wine was still in perfectly sound condition. Excellent as always.
Actually lol’d. Very eager to see what Goodfellow does with this vineyard. The Martin Woods bottling is great.
Agreed. I’ve also really enjoyed the Bednarik SVD bottling from Hundred Suns.
I’ve got a couple of 2019 Domaine Glennon Bednark Vineyard Pinot Noir bottles you made, that I found online (The Wine Merchants, Olivette MO; also had picked up a couple of 2018 and 2019 Glennon Shea Vineyard wines you made). I am pretty sure I’ve not yet tried one of the 2019 Bednarks, but the 2019 Shea was really nice.
We had the 2011 Matello Lazarus on Tuesday night and it was delicious and in a really good spot with about 3 hours of decanting. Pretty and bright fruit, nice complexity and a supple texture made this a delicious wine with some chicken thighs in a white wine and Dijon sauce. We also opened a 2005 Guillemot Savigny-les-Beane Narbantons since our guest missed our last Burgundy tasting. The Guillemot was a little darker-fruited, with a bit more structure but it is starting to get in the drinkable stage, for sure. Two different sides of Pinot Noir, but both really nice.
STL represent! I love the wine merchant. Didn’t realize Marcus was involved in domaine Glennon as well, that’s a solid bottle of pinot, i’ll have to pick up a couple more bottles next time I’m in.
and let me just say what a great experience it is dealing with Marcus and Megan. Such a delight to buy from, and appreciate how much they’re willing to engage and discuss their wine and making you feel like a lifetime customer
The 2019 Shea turned out well. Dick Shea does a great job with farming and a lot of Willamette Valley producers have made excelent wines from the vineyard, and both Blair Trathan and Chris Mazepink made some killer wines during their stints as winemakers for Dick Shea. It’s a warmer site though and I am a cooler climate winemaker. I think I told Darin that it was like bringing a Batman type director the script for Superman.
Bednarik is the opposite. Very much a vineyard that gives me what I want, at times even worryingly so. But the 2019 fruit was monstrously good and the puncheon that produced the Domaine Glennon Bednarik was one of my two favorite puncheons in the cellar. (Which doesn’t make it better than the Shea)
That’s great to hear Marshall!
I sometimes muse on what has been the most surprising thing that I have learned or discovered in the time that I have produced wines. At or near the top would definitely be the ageworthiness of Willamette Valley wines, especially the basic cuvees.
Over the years, it has been gratifying to see the wines age so well. Originally I thought 10-15 years would be about the lifespan, but just about everything from the early years is holding up extremely well. That’s as true of the basic Willamette Valley bottling as it is of the best wines. I see the quality difference in them, but the WV wines remain very enjoyable and evolve and grow over two decades plus now.
Even the off vintages really seem to have an excellent extended lifespan. When the 07s first started to evolve into really good wines, I was really happy to see it, but naively assumed they would not last as long because of the rain during the vintage. Now at 18 years old, the WV is just lovely.
As much as we don’t tend to cellar things for 15-20 years any more, or even 20+ years, I am beginning to think that the few who do will reap the rewards of doing so. I have posted about the 1994 Brickhouse at 28 years old, but that wine continues to sit in the forefront of my agrd Oregon wine experiences. It was easily as good as 99% of my experiences with 1er Cru Burgundy, and just a magical experience.
Jesse inspired me to check back in on the 2023 Berserker Cuvée yesterday/last evening. Enjoyed over about six hours. I opened my first of these four months ago and it was quite nice back then (late September 2025) but even nicer last evening. Grew and opened up over the six hours. Tasty stuff. 
