Willamette Valley Vineyards, Elton Vineyard, Pinot Noir 2007
If you like French Burgundy, you'll love this bottle of wine. This is another bottle from Willamette Valley Vineyards, that ironically, has a style more akin to France than Oregon. Oregon is typically known for "bigger" Pinots: full, dark fruit, and rich. This, on the other hand, is lighter, with more red fruits, and is elegant and nuanced.
The nose opened with ... beach! Yeah, it smelled like the Oregon coast. That smell up on the dry sand of driftwood and other dried flotsam and jetsam. And dust (like a dusty road). A sweet smell comes and goes. Maybe a cherry vanilla smell. Maybe that's a dry creek bed smell. Sort of dust mixed with must. Hard to get my finger on it. A bit later on the aromas changed a bit. Red cherry candy emerged. The dust was still there, but the beach was gone. Denise smelled bark: dusty, dirty bark -- like a gangly old tree. She said it smell "Entish".
The taste and finish are wound up with each other; which is the say that the finish is very quick. It's earth, then sweet, then berry, and then gone. The earth is dirt, moss and wood. The sweet is vanilla, but it's there and gone in a flash. The fruit is red cherry and hints of salmon berry. Then it's gone: almost like a very dry (and not sour) cranberry at the end. There's no lingering finish.
Tasting later we got hints of white pepper and pomegranate. While the nose gained some anise and violet (yummy). Denise found hyacinth, orange and cola. And later still, the finish improved with cayenne and black liquorice.
Denise said that this would be great with a dark chocolate. I agreed. However, definitely open this one up and leave it open for awhile before drinking. It really opens up after a few hours.
Cost:
$45Rating:
9.0 
Beaux Freres, Willamette Valley, Pinot Noir, 2006
Apparently 2009 was difficult for just about everybody if you read all those end-of-year editorials and remembrances. 2009 was especially hard on our family. So what did we drink New Years Eve? We decided on carpe diem, and broke open one of our Beaux Freres. This is always a double-edged sword: we really have never been disappointed beyond the fear that we opened a it too early. This one was no different. If you can resist drinking them now, by all means, hold 'em. But if you do crack one, they are -- without fail -- pure pleasure in a bottle.
This one was really big for Beaux Freres -- lots of body and dark fruit. But the thing about Beaux Freres is that they tend to be insanely floral -- something we just love. It's almost as if they raided the Portland Rose Gardens one evening and stuffed the fermentation tanks with rose pedals. It smells and tastes just like that. Incredible.
Along with the rose, the nose was wood, anise, and pepper. The nost took awhile to open up. It started fairly flat, but after an hour. The anise became much stronger, along with some eucalyptus.
And that was the other thing that was a bit different from 2005, this one was strong with pepper. Very spicy. As I said, the body was really full on this one. Silky, full and rich in your mouth. The taste was a mixture of rose pedals and black cherry. Strong black cherry meandered through hints of leather, chocolate. While you can taste the oak, which is normally presents a fairly sweet taste; the leather just stopped that sweetness in its tracks. And the finish was black cherry mixed with a non-sweet Satsuma orange.
Cost:
$49Rating:
9.5
Willamette Valley Vineyard, Pinot Gris, 2008
Here's another wine we got from Willamette Valley Vineyards. And while we review a lot of Pinot Noir, we also like the Gris and Blanc cousins.
This one smells like pear, and lime ... and peach! This was a well balanced and tasty Pinot Gris and was not overly acidic. The taste was a pear and peach combo — it starts peach (just hints of sweetness) and then ends in pear (not sweet). So it feels dry and smooth with just enough tartness to give it a little backbone.
Denise, who normally isn't much for whites, really like this one. She thought that initial spark of sweetness was like a can of sweet mandarins (in a good way). Yet, she liked that that sweetness immediately dissipated into what she thought was a celery mixed with lychee fruit (that sounds weird to type, but the flavor was really nice). Denise also thought it has a little buttery-ness to it and a slight effervescence. She concluded that this wine would go great with chili and satsumas.
For me, I think they did a really great job with this too. I read the back label and found that they blended in a little Pinot Blanc and Muscat into this bottle. I really like Pinot Blanc (though most people don't seem to); I think it gave this wine that buttery-ness Denise found and liked. And while I don't usually like Muscat, I suppose it's a lot like Grenache: better when blended, but perhaps hit-and-miss on it's own (that's my personal opinion anyway).
Bottomline: Denise and both really liked this one. And only $16, that's a great bargin too.
Cost:
$16Rating:
8.5
Willamette Valley Vineyards, 'Whole Cluster Fermented', Pinot Noir, 2008
Lots of people love Pinot Noir because of the thrill in the inability to really know what you're going to find inside the bottle. Pinots, more so than other varietals, can be hit and miss. Usually these people (myself included) love the highs so much that they brave (and endure) the lows. And then sometimes, you find something really unusual, like this bottle.
Oregon Pinots are known for being really big and jammy. Often when they're on the lighter side, they're called "Burgundian". But Pinots from Burgundy aren't just lighter, they're generally more earthy and subtle in their flavors. This bottle was neither jammy nor Burgundian.
Instead, it was light and fruity -- almost akin to a really great Beaujolais. The nose was raisin, dust, red cherry, violet, and a hint of wood. The taste started with a flash of sweetness, and then it changed into a strong red cherry and maybe some blackberry. The finish was pomegrante and was really quick. This wine reminded me of another Oregon Pinot we liked: the Phelps Creek, 2007. This wine was really well balanced.
Denise really liked this one. See said it "a wine that dances, and wears chiffon". And then, "this would be perfect to drink when sitting in a red velvet room eating chocolate". She thought it would be great with a Christmas dinner because it wasn't overly heavy.
We never read the marketing descriptions on the wines we review until after (and this was no exception). And too often, those descriptions don't seem all that helpful. However in this case, I think Willamette Valley Vineyards hit the nail on this head in describing this wine: "As refreshing as liquid fruit salad in a glass". Yeah, that's exactly right, it's like liquid fruit salad.
Cost:
($19)Rating:
8.5