2014 Pinot Noir Notorious

This is a compelling set of Pinots that showcases the powerful fruit of the 2014 vintage while also managing to present an impression of elegance. Although the wines are awfully delicious already, my hunch is that most of them will be at their best with another three-plus years of bottle age and then drink well until at least their 10th birthdays. Co-owners and winemakers Patty Green and Jim Anderson have been working side by side since meeting up at Torii Mor in 1993; they left to start their own winery in 2000. They have steadily been increasing production over the ensuing years via contracts with some of the region’s best growers as well as by ongoing planting of their own 52-acre estate vineyard, which sits in the heart of the Ribbon Ridge appellation, abutting Beaux Frères. Anderson told me that while he and Green share the myriad winery duties, over the years he has been spending more time in the winery and Green has been more occupied with overseeing the vines that they tend both in the home vineyard and at the sites they work under contract, which are spread across the Willamette Valley. Given that just over 12,000 cases were produced here in 2014, “that’s a lot of vines to take care of,” Anderson pointed out. These elegant, perfumed wines are consistently among the finest Pinot Noir values to be found not only from Oregon, but from anywhere, with the entry-level Reserve bottling, in particular, delivering value far above its price. Anderson said that he couldn’t “add much to what everybody has been saying since day one – 2014 is a remarkable vintage for quality and quantity.” The potential Achilles’ heel is that Mother Nature might have been too generous. There were record-breaking fruit sets across the Willamette Valley, which mandated cluster-thinning to avoid potential dilution in the wines, “and that really hurts when the fruit is as clean as it was in ’14.” There’s also the issue of larger-than-normal berries in 2014, “which means less structure, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’re drinking the wines young, and lots of the ‘14s are perfect for that.” The Pinots here are raised in up to a third new French oak “depending on the vintage and each vineyard’s material that year, and there’s no dogma,” Anderson told me.