Patricia Green Pinot Noir, Ancient Oceans, and Dead Volcanoes

03 May Patricia Green Pinot Noir, Ancient Oceans, and Dead Volcanoes

2014 Volcanic Pinot Noir

The Dundee Hills are the result of the Pacific Rim’s Ring of Fire volcanic activity, and the soils in which this wine was grown are lava-based with silt, loam and clay within the mostly South-facing arc of the Hills that provides relatively stable sun-exposure and protection from the nearby tumult of Pacific winds and weather all the way through fall harvest. These naturally ideal vineyard sites allow minimal-intervention winemaking to showcase the best of the rich soil’s explosive history, producing sweetly-fruited wines with downy tannins that grip the tongue just enough to allow red fruits and gentle spices to linger behind a slinky display of black minerals. The darkness of the mineral character leave a tantalizing hint of pre-historic charred earth on the palate, or it might be just my imagination.

2014 Marine Sedimentary Pinot Noir

The Chehalem Mountains, the highest in the Willamette Valley, have soils composed of ancient marine sediment and uplifted Columbia River basalt, with widely variable rainfall and the Willamette Valley’s widest variation in temperature as well requiring of these particular Ribbon Ridge vineyard sites wizardry in vineyard management to succeed in keeping with Patricia Green Cellars’ philosophy of non-irrigation. Ribbon Ridge itself is a steep valley that winds from the mountains out to the coast and was underwater for an aeon or more. Darker fruits, firmer tannins, and saline minerals are the show here, creating the Fonzie of Oregon Pinot Noir that has a palpably cooling effect on the palate, with tannins that, even without being dusty, slow an incredibly texturally rich finish starting right in the middle of the tongue.

2014 Lia’s Vineyard Pinot Noir
(which I am drinking right now with much relish)

Lia’s Vineyard straddles a transition between Marine and Volcanic soil, and the fruit is picked to showcase the best of both types of mountain soils creating a supremely balanced Pinot Noir that is joyfully approachable now as I sample it early in its release (rather, drink it with proper gusto; it’s mostly gone; you’ll see on Wednesday) and is supremely age-worthy for, what, five years, ten, more??  The 2014 release embodies what Winemakers Patty and Jim ultimately desired to produce at Lia’s when they first looked at the site in 2009, as it finally includes the balancing qualities of the tiny, vineyard-center planting of Mariafeld Clone 23’s firm tannins and bright acids, rare in Oregon and ideal to harmonize the disparate elements that make Patricia Green Cellars’ Lia’s Vineyard Pinot Noir a crowning achievement of their already gorgeously terroir-melding efforts here since 2010.  The interplay of tannin and acid create a dancingly lively texture– two courtesans armwrestling over whether they’ll have black or red tea- that is at once welcoming and darkly enticing.

Full Disclosure

I have been devoted to Patricia Green Cellars and obsessed with sharing their wines since I was offered the 2010 Balcombe Vineyard Pinot Noir to sell by the bottle at a new American restaurant in Texas a few years ago.  Never before or since have I tasted American Pinot Noir wines that age so reliably after such an approachable (and food appropriate!) youth and that so express terroir in a such a straightforward and unapologetic manner, no matter the season.  Do it now.  I think the most expensive one we’re tasting is forty dollars.  Buy it as part of a case, and it’s 12% off. Always. Cheers.

And we’re tasting them Wednesday, 5/4 from 5:30-7 PM!