Completely agree on that. @Jim_Anderson you’ve been put on notice to set aside a couple bottles for me!
Glad it’s working for you! 2004s aren’t my personal name but people like them!
Yeah, it didn’t evolve or gain complexity very much over several hours, but had an impressive amount of fruit considering it’s 20 years old. Not fading at all.
Sounds like 2004. Lots of fruit. Very good but doesn’t evolve the way a 2001, 2002, 2005 would in terms of wines if similar ages. It was a weird and sort of depressing vintage given the horrifically small yields and inconsistent patterns throughout vineyards. That’s they’re decent at 20 years is encouraging and surprising but it’s just not a vintage that should blow you away.
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Check your email and spam folder for a special from Margaret.
30% off on bunch of stuff.
I ordered last week!
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Opened a 2015 Freedom Hill Vineyard for Frank’s virtual charity Pinot Noir event today. It’s really beautiful.
But also, have a 2022 Chehalem Mountain Vineyard that I opened Wednesday evening, enjoyed half the bottle and put remaining wine into a 375 bottle and into the fridge. Enjoyed a glass last evening and am now enjoying the remaining wine on this third night. It’s so damn good.
I love the 2021 Chehalem Mountain Vineyard and this 2022 is every bit as wonderful. For that matter, both the Chehalem Mountain Vineyard and Chehalem Mountain Vineyard, Wadensvil Clone, so far have been my favorites of the 2022’s Pinots Jim has given us. Just wonderful stuff. 
Glad the 2015 was showing.
We journeyed into Chehalem Mountain Vineyard in 2019 with a super small block bottling. In 2021 we expanded to several blocks in the site and bottled a large bottling (1,200 cases) that was really lovely and great (I thought) at the price. Repeated in 2022. Less blocks in 2023 with a somewhat smaller production (860 cases). And that’s it. We did not renew our contract in 2024. I wanted to make somewhat less wine (if you’ve seen the winery you would understand) and we only wanted to work with internally farmed vineyards (or ones using very small management companies). That wasn’t the case here. Still, it’s a terrific and historical site and the quality of the wine was (IMO) excellent.
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Ah, a legend. Truly one of the great wines from the bygone days! No wine has ever possessed the amount of in-barrel dry extract than that wine. Bet it was doing stuff tonight!
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Anden seven springs?
Needed 1+ hours to open, ripe fruit with sedimentary mineralality. Still very primary with little development, fruit seems muted and likely needs more time before it opens up fully. Little ripe for my taste, maybe the vintage or the young vines. Lovely stemmy notes and lengthy finish.
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Anden was the name given to the lower and older part of Seven Springs Vineyard when the original owners split up. Our block was part of the original 1982 planting of Pommard. Back in 2006 it was still on a hanging trellis system and always looked rough. But it made really compelling wines. The 2006 and 2005 (we had the fruit from 2002-2006) were exceptionally notable bottlings.
Love the 2016s. They are still, as you note, essentially unmoved from when they were bottled. They’re bright and fresh but also packed full of stuffing. They’re terrific and will reward amazing levels of patience.
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Bangin’ Mr. Anderson, bangin’…
- 2015 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Perspicacious Cuvée Freedom Hill Vineyard - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley (12/9/2024)
Just fantastic–and immediately so after opening. Sometimes these “super cuvee” are bugger and more extracted. Heavier but not “better”. This is essentially the opposite. Lighter color, elegant and refined. Silky and ethereal. Shows a fine red fruited core with hints of blood orange and citrus lift. Whole cluster is apparently with woven into the fabric of the structure that seems true–hard to imagine it in any other fashion. Despite the “light touch” on the palate, finish deepens and is quite long, adding some spice notes. Should only get better but fantastic now. (95 points)
Posted from CellarTracker
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Hey. Appreciate the insightful note and comment. The Freedom Hill Vineyard Perspicacious Cuvee has always been about finding a special fermenter that was done 100% whole cluster, could take extra levels of intervention and come out on the other side with the nuances rather than the in your face qualities that those things can provide. It has always been about trying to marry intense structure, lifted mouthfeel and fruit intensity by identifying special lots of fruit and digging into their capacity to accept handling that would muddle up other stuff. It has been a search to make something that our vineyards have in them, if in absurdly small quantities, but that need to be gently yet firmly pulled from them. Not every thing, even from the best sites, have that in them.
The 2015 version is the Coury Clone block. This is already one of our top bottlings, IMO and the regular 2015 bottling of FHV Coury Clone is excellent. This fermenter stood out and we felt we could really drag out all this extra stuff without making the wine absurd. The goal is nuance and power. Not power for the sake of itself.
We began this bottling in 2014 with a block of Dijon 115. The Coury Clone was done in 2015. The next 3 vintages were skipped despite the quality of the vintages. It was reinstated in 2019 with the same block as 2014. The 2021 and 2023 are Wadensvil and the 2022 is Pommard. I love all these wines immensely. I think they are true representations of what Oregon vineyards can produce at the upper end of the Pinot Noir scale without being rigged to be overblown and ridiculous examples of Pinot Noir (of which there are plenty including things currently discussed in threads on this board).
While in large measure these wines were and are attempts to push vineyards to levels of excellence that I appreciate and admire from Burgundy they are largely born out of my admiration for Kelley Fox’s wines. That seems obvious now but back in the day it was about the wines she was making and how I felt like our wines could get to another level by doing things we weren’t, at the time, doing.
This wine drives my staff nuts (because of the name) and because there isn’t any sort of program for it. There’s no release event or anything. We just casually sell it here and there. Ww make between 47-96 cases of it. Inthink we are selling the 2019 now but still have some 2014. The 2015 is gone. We might be on 2021. It’s not a specifically planned wine despite the distinct nature of the wine and the price point. It’s about showing a very unique wine to people whom we think will appreciate it. Glad we matched up here!
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Agree 100%. You pretty much nailed it. I have a couple of more recent vintages as well. Will have to be patient with those I think.
So, they are different clones different years because it’s more like a barrel/fermenter selection? (not a vineyard block?) Is this similar to the “Notorious” selection?
It’s a specific fermenter that is selected immediately and is treated accordingly. It is always from Freedom Hill as that is where I believe what we are doing has the greatest potential impact. The blocks vary because it is the fruit deemed to be the best stuff and the likeliest to emerge transformed as we would like.
Notorious is a selection of new barrels across a multitude of sites that show largesse and exotic qualities. It is quite the opposite of the Perspicacious. It’s still delicious but in a much different manner.
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I absolutely loved the ‘16 Freedom Hill 115, when I last had it, but that was within a year or two if its release. Delighted to find out I still have 3 more squirreled away (the only PG 16s left, unfortunately, as that’s before I realized the reward for cellaring).
Happy to read this, sounds right up my alley. Was lucky and found a 2015 at a local wine shop recently, it’ll be my first PGC wine. Sounds like they’re ready to go now unless you’d recommend waiting longer?
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