1000% this. I get your position of not wanting to list the producer…but without that, your comment is WAY too general to even have a relevant conversation
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A to Z?
I can’t completely remember the '11 and '12 but I’m quite sure they were of different nested AVAs here in Oregon - likely Eola-Amity Hills and Chehalem Mountains.
I had an ‘06 Beaux Frères two months ago and it was great. Definitely in a great drinking window.
Still not nearly enough for an assessment.
Anyway, your original premise about the ageability of Oregon Pinot is simplistic at best and badly flawed at worst. Depends on the wine.
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I’m holding some Beaux Freres in my collection - that’s good to know!
Eola Amity and Chehalem aren’t nested.
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Are you talking about Willamette Valley Vineyards? If so, I don’t think those wines were made for long aging. I had some of the 09 Hannah Vineyards and Signature Cuvee, and they were showing very marked oak eight years out. I drank mine up five or six years ago. I was seduced by them young, but I think they were very commercial wines – not serious agers.
I certainly wouldn’t generalize about the Oregon pinot category from one producer, if that’s what you’re talking about.
A couple of St. Innocent from this year. Both stored the same since release.
2002 Shea, held a couple of years too long. Starting to fade.
2005 Seven Springs Special Selection, going strong, will hold, maybe improve.
As you have not provided specifics, I’ll respond with generalities. I believe there is a large group of producers that are making dry farmed, terroir driven, wines that can age as long as you want to hold them. This makes up the bulk of the wine that is discussed on this forum and includes (but is not limited to) producers like Eyrie, Goodfellow, Walter Scott, PGC, Vincent, Brick house, etc. When to open is a function of how much age you want on your pinot, but I believe the general concensus for drinking windows on these wines are decades too short. I know it’s a burgundy thread, but I can’t help but thinking it applies to the older vine wines from WV as well, Ageability of Burgundy.
I’ve had enough 20ish year old Oregon pinot this year to realize they were mostly still primary wines with no risk of falling apart. I’ve also had enough 21 OR pinot to think these wines will last forever, e.g. PGC wind ridge (I derive serious pleasure from expecting what this will taste like in 25 years).
When you get outside of producers in this vein of winemaking all bets are off. There is a lot of rich, low-acid wines that I’m sure won’t age well. By volumne this may even be the norm for OR pinot, but among the producers we discuss here, 5-8 years is a floor not a ceiling.
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If they’re still primary at 20 years, I’d wonder if they’re going to evolve. Sounds like a lot of California cab, which can just kind of freeze at a certain point and not develop more complexity.
Ben, you’re getting great feedback from others. Depending on the vineyard and producer the wines can go decades.
In 2015 I got to try a 1985 Eyrie Pinot that remains to this day one of the most ethereal and beautiful wines I’ve had in my life. And it had some years left in it still.
My sense is that serious OR wines go though many phases of development.
The first phase is generally an open early drinking window where the fruit and strucutre is in balance and the wines are pleasant to drink. This varies considerably by wine but generally occurs withinthe first 2-3 years after vintage. For the 2021 vintage I’ve had wines like Kelley Fox Mirabai, Evesham woods Eola, Arterberry Maresh dundee, J.C. Somers Joie de chin, Vincent RR, Cameron Dundee, PGC La Belle promenade which have all be lovely over the past year. I tend to buy these wines when they become available, typically starting 1 year post vintage (so fall of 2023 for the 2022 vintage) and drink over the next year until the subsequent vintage is available. Rinse and repeat for early drinking wines. These wines tend to shut down at some point afterwards, maybe 2-3+ years post vintage.
For the single vineyard wines, I don’t open these on release. They tend to be structured and monolithic on release, and really benefit from multiple years in bottle. If you wait 6ish years you will get a wine whose tannins have polymerised to the point of providng a creamy mouthfell, so technically I guess they are ‘open’, but they are often still entirely primary. I get the sense that in general producures (and not just those in oregon) tend to push for earlier windows as a way to give consumers a chance to view the wines, but I believe most of these are still just to young. So prodcuers may say 6-8 years and they are right in the sense that the rough edges have been removed, but the reality is that I like these wines with 20+ years.
I was lucky enough to tast at the post-IPNC 2013 Oregon meeting with 30+ of these wines, and while they were all past the young phase, I can’t think of any that I was concerned had been aged too long. On the other hand, there were many like PGC coury and the old-vine Dundee where I thought they were all still very primary in flavor and would benefit from more time.
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Great feedback - I too sampled the 1985 Eyrie a few years back - amazing depth at that age - I was in junior high when that was picked!
Creating over reaching statements about ageability of wines based on N’s of one or two is pretty far fetched IMHO
Cheers
This sounds like possible heat damage to me. I’d assume that it’s possible that the wine sat on a delivery truck during a hot summer’s day while the distributor was delivering the wine to the wine shop. It’s either that, or it’s the producer. In 2013 I opened a bottle of 2006 Bergström Pinot Noir Nysa Vineyard that smelled like a bottle of coconut tanning oil & stewed fruits. This was a bottle bought through the wine club, purchased direct from the winery, and stored in a passive cellar that ranged from 48-56 degrees. (The same place I store my other Oregon wines that were fine). I’ve still got bottles of Patricia Green Pinot Noir from 2005 & 2008 that still have life left in them.
There are a bunch of things that a winemaker (and nature) can do to affect the aging capabilities of a wine. In the 1983 vintage in Oregon, the most lauded wine at the time was Yamhill Valley Vineyards Pinot Noir. It tasted great young, but it had a relatively high pH, and by 1989, it was toast. In 2003, for my 50th birthday, we did a tasting of 15 pinots from 1983 and 1985. Only one made it to the dinner table - a 1985 Eyrie Reserve, with a 1985 Cameron coming close. The rest of the wines ranged from totally undrinkable to barely tolerable.
Certainly viticulture and winemaking have improved significantly since then, but most winemakers still want to make a wine that is approachable when sold. Depending on the conditions of the vintage, that may mean that there is a decision between drinkability and ageability. On the ageability side of things, in 1980, I bought my first case of wine - 1979 Ponzi Estate Pinot Noir. I drank a bottle a year for twelve years, and it was never a pleasant drinking experience - tight, acidic, and tannic. So what wine do they serve at their 50 year anniversary party? 1979 Ponzi Estate Pinot! While the wine eventually came around, as a consumer, I wasn’t willing to a) wait 40 years for the wine to come around and b) take a chance on another case of their wine.
As far as 2006 is concerned, I wouldn’t expect many of those Pinots to have a long life. Pretty much all the fruit was ready to pick the same day. Unless you had the capacity to bring in all your fruit that day (no one does), you ended up picking overripe, high pH grapes. I worked harvest that year at Brick House, and it took us eight 14+ hour days to get everything in. Doug made a couple 15+% ABV Pinots that year, and if you know Doug, anything over 14% is an anomaly. How do you think those higher ABV wines aged?
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Enjoyed reading this Rick!
Checking that out - thank you Megan!
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