Checking in on 2014, 2015 & 2016 WV Pinots

Here's a look at three top Willamette Valley Pinots from three excellent vintages

I maintain a shall we say ‘healthy’ wine cellar. Given all the years I’ve been reviewing NW wines it’s loaded with them, with vintages going back decades. Nonetheless I do not want a zombie wine cellar full of decaying bottles, so I tend it much like a garden. I spend many happy hours ‘weeding’ out wines that may be teetering over the edge, and carefully reorganizing bins to keep the oldest wines on top for easy access.

It’s a great pleasure to pull out older wines, and I don’t need any particular excuse to do so other than ‘I wonder how such-and-such is showing at the moment.’ This week I pulled three Pinots from successive vintages (see photo). Rather than post up tasting notes I’ll tell you more about my methodology.

First I let them stand up for an hour or more to settle any gunk that may have developed. If a cork is more than a decade old I reach for the trusty Durand (www.thedurand.com) – an expensive but essential tool for wrangling decrepit corks. These wines were just shy of that milestone so I took a chance with my waiter’s corkscrew and got all three corks out with no trouble.

It’s important to recognize that wines will need a little wake-up time if they’ve been hanging out in your cellar for some years. Once the cork is pulled the clock is ticking on how long it will take for the wine to open up, and how long it will last once it’s in full bloom, so you need to be paying attention. You don’t want to drink it before it’s really at its best; but you don’t want that train to leave the station before you’re on board.

Among these three the Durant was right there right away. Fresh and still showing some primary fruits. I’ve found that many of the 2015s are like that – drinking really well and still quite youthful. The Patty Green was just the opposite – tight and taut and somewhat grumpy. Although 2016 is (for me) a great vintage in the Willamette Valley, those Pinots are tight as a tick and will probably age well for another couple of decades. Still after some hours the PG opened into an elegant, aromatic and subtle expression that invited careful sipping and gave me much pleasure.

The 2014 Résonance was the first or second vintage for this Louis Jadot Oregon project, and was made in a refurbished shed on the back of Trisaetum’s property. That particular vintage got a high score from the wine mags (don’t get me started on the stupidity of assigning numerical scores to vintage years) but those wines seem to be aging more quickly than any subsequent vintages.

None of these wines improved on the second day, which is no surprise. It’s very young wines that often get better on day two (or three) – older wines should generally be consumed within a few hours for optimal enjoyment. Really old wines (decades old) may only last a few minutes – often an explosion of lush aromatics, a quick burst on the palate, and then rapid decay. You just never know what to expect. But that’s the fun of it, yes?

If you have any thoughts on these vintages of WV Pinot, please make a comment!