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Cristom Vineyards

As more and more Pinot Noir producers, including those in California, adjust their winemaking style to a market that's asking for low-octane, graceful wines, Cristom's Steve Doerner, who was a pioneer of the style, has become a sort of wizened visionary for a new generation of winemakers. Doerner, who worked at Burgundy's Domaine Dujac in the late 1970s, began to hone his style, which emphasizes whole-cluster fermentations, at Josh Jensen's Calera Winery in the early 1980s and has further refined it since moving to Oregon to help establish this winery in 1992. While Doerner's style of spicy, highly floral Pinot is now commonplace, that was not the case when he first began to make his mark, a fact that he acknowledges with a shrug and slight embarrassment. While he has made small tweaks here and there to his winemaking style over the decades, he told me he still has the same philosophy, "which is to get elegant, complex wines that show their place--so pretty simple." At the end of our tasting in August, Doerner pulled out a bottle of the 2004 Signature Cuvée, a remarkably youthful wine that in no way is acting its age right now. I'd have guessed that it was at least five years younger so if you're lucky enough to own any, hands off.

From Oregon Pinot Noir: The 2013s & 2012 Late Releases (Oct 2015) by Josh Raynolds

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2012 Pinot Noir Mt. Jefferson Cuvée

Release Price: $30

Color: Red

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