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2011 Reserve Pinot Noir, Ridgecrest Vineyards,Ribbon Ridge, OR, 375ml
2011 is the epitome of an "ageable vintage" as far as we are concerned, and our Reserve tier is the most age-worthy of all the Chehalem wines.  This Pinot Noir Reserve is exhibiting plenty of youthful charm, with a progression towards more thoughtful complexity with time in the glass.  First notes are exalted bright fruit aromatics of red-to-black raspberry, cassis, dark cherry, and some ethereal violets, thyme, and black tea.  More evolution brings smoky grilled lamb shank and peppercorn, with dark chocolate and barrel aromatics highlighting the nose.  The palate is elegant yet assertive, with a firm structure of fine tannin, astounding balance, and a full, rich finish.  Only time will show how much more this will evolve.

Vintage: Yes, 2011 is THE latest harvest on our records.  Three weeks late, picking some of our blocks as late as the second week of November, one would think the cards were stacked against us.  However, considering three positive aspects from the vintage: 1) late season sun, 2) lower yields, and 3) below average rainfall - we're seeing one of the best vintages of the last twenty years emerge.  Resulting wines are fully ripe, rich, deep dark AND carry low pHs/high acids and low alcohols, which bodes exceptionally well for long again, food friendliness and reputation that makes similar years, like 1999 and 2008, humble!

2012 Reserve Pinot Noir, Ridgecrest Vineyards,Ribbon Ridge, OR, 375ml
It's no surprise the 2012 vintage has been highly touted by critics and consumers alike, and it's no surprise we chose this wine as our top-of-the-line wine from a top-of-the-line vintage.  This wine will blow your socks off.  Not only was it a fabulous vintage to begin with, a bit of hail in the Spring on Ribbon Ridge clipped this crop short and helped to concentrate this wine even more.  Red-to-black velour in color, so deep you can barely see through it, with a bounty of dark fruit (think huckleberries and tiny soft blackberries), so concentrated and filled with sweet fruit you can hardly stand it.  The flavors and aromas keep changing in the glass, but the complexity reaches out with vanilla, creme de cassis, rose hips, tamarind, tobacco, blackberry seed, warm oak, and bing cherry.  Tremendous depth and density, serious tannin, juiciness, a big, lingering finish, but it's still lively and vibrant, and it's go ageability for the ages.  Phew.

Vintage: This was a uniformly excellent vintage in the Willamette Valley, more so than the past few years where some winemakers read it well and others may not have.  The weather was storybook, almost entirely positive, with the Grinch of hail in one or two localized sites proving we're as vulnerable as Burgundy.  The heat accumulations are the 5th highest in the last 16 years, putting ripeness in the league with 2004 and 1998.  The perfectly warm and completely dry growing and ripening seasons kept disease away and pushed full ripeness without sacrificing acid structure. 

2013 Reserve Pinot Noir, Ridgecrest Vineyards,Ribbon Ridge, OR, 375ml

• 92 Points - Wine Spectator

Although we had a cooler spell and a bit of rain in 2013, we got from this vintage the quintessential elegance we strive for each year, with a  supple nose redolent of cherry, cranberry, strawberry, and pomegranate.  We think this wine is a class example of Oregon Pinot Noir, showing finesse and texture over size, with velour-like tannins, fresh, Asian spice, cedar, morels, hints of earth, high-toned, balanced very well, and structured in a lean, delicate, silky, light tannin framework that promises further development and long-aging.

Vintage: 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.