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2013 Chehalem Stoller Vineyards Pinot Noir, Dundee Hills, Oregon

• 91 Points - Vinous

The warmth of Stoller Vineyards, especially when a year finishes with a cool spell, can be so nicely balanced you would never know we had 6 inches of rain over a weekend during harvest.  The Pinot Noir that came from 2013 is so nicely balanced, you would guess it was a perfect 70 degrees all summer long, and into harvest.  The nose has ripe plum, red apple skin, cocoa, and cherry cola, with the earthiness and baking spice classic of the Stoller site.  The palate is round, fleshy, voluptuously soft, mouth-coating, and finishing with velveteen tannins and soft, accepting acid...so comfy you might just stay there in the warmth for a while.

Vintage Notes: 2013 is a Tale of Two Harvests - one very early and one normal, with rain in-between.  They started as one very early harvest thanks to a very consistent, warm growing season, the warmest on record up to final ripening mid-September.  An unanticipated 30-year rain event of 5 inches then appeared the last days of September, made of remnants from a typhoon that had hit Japan.  Cool weather from then on slowed ripening and turned harvest into two discrete picks, earlier and later picks apart by up to three weeks showing very good quality, the coolness and longer hang-time a big benefit.  Croploads were moderate-to-high, wines early-on similar in nature to 1996, with richness, and deep spice.