It comes from a long, long way away, from what is at best a fledgling industry. It’s generally over-rated, especially by those who make it, but in itself that’s nothing new. It sells out astronomically quickly to a prejudiced local market, but again, that’s nothing new. It isn’t yet, but it could ultimately produce the New World’s best pinot noir, a claim made at various times by the Napa Valley and Sonoma, the Yarra Valley, Martinborough, the Mornington Peninsula and now also by Central Otago. It’s Oregon pinot noir, with particular emphasis on Yamhill County in the North Willamette region. Oregon pinot noir is in the process of re-inventing itself. Like many cool-climate regions within wine’s New World, it was re-established in the 1960s and 1970s after a previous rise and fall. There are presently over forty makers, with over 10,000 acres under vine. There’s no denying that the early wines of some of the region’s first modern vineyards, like Eyrie Vineyard, Adelsheim, Amity, Ponzi, Erath and Sokol Blosser, have provided the wines that gave Oregon its early lustre, but many of the older vineyards that contributed to these labels are now facing major problems. An alarming number are poorly sited, likely to fall victim to phylloxera if they haven’t already, are using poor fruit clones and are operating with inadequate trellising techniques. Today these vineyards struggle to ripen fruit adequately and in all but the warmest seasons produce insipid pinot noirs lacking in concentration and texture. Some of the winemaking is both deficient in training and under-resourced. Yet, credit where it is due, for many of these makers created the region’s reputation and have inspired its not insignificant recent expansion. Yamhill County begins a short drive inland from Portland, Oregon’s major city. Its climate is moderate and maritime, and its rainfall is a comparatively dampish 1000 mm by Australian standards. The county’s topography varies between substantial undulating rolling hills (the foothills of the Coast Range), many of which are cleared and have been planted to vines and other fruit crops, and expansive sweeping plains which play home to intensive horticultural industries such as hazelnuts and grass seed. Oregon’s better vineyards are typically sited on gentle to quite steep slopes of reasonable elevation that are amongst the first to capture morning sunlight. Despite their characteristic red colour, the best soils are not excessively fertile. Frost is only an issue on lower slopes, but a generally inconsistent climate has led to some rather substantial vintage variation. The better-managed and more recent vineyards made a better fist of the dampish 1997 season, while most vineyards performed to their potential in 1998. A serious look at this much-feted vintage tends to confirm that the newer arrivals are indeed doing it better. While I didn’t have the chance in a short visit to experience anything like the entire extent of Yamhill County’s pinot industry, I saw enough of a cross-section to be able to recommend the following makers. Domaine Serene is a large Napa Valley-style development imposed atop one of the more elevated sites in the region. It will have to work hard to achieve top-level concentration of flavour, but is worth watching. Domaine Drouhin is the well-known project of the Beaune-based Burgundian makers and shippers of the same name, which captured global headlines when the high-profile Robert Drouhin chose Oregon for his pet offshore project. Typical of the red wines of this maker, Drouhin’s Oregon wines are very firm, savoury and spicy, and rather hard-edged. Foris makes pinot of fragrance and concentration, with the fleshy texture and silkiness typical of the best from Oregon. Led by the incredibly concentrated Reserve label, Rex Hill’s pinot noirs developed intense red and black cherry flavours in 1998. Yamhill Valley’s 1998 Reserve is fleshy, dark and smoky, but lacks the length and texture of the better wines. It alarms me somewhat to think of what its maker, a rather off-the-wall Texan by the name of Rollin Soles, might charge for it, but I’ve put my name down for a box of a truly astonishing 1999 pinot noir I tasted out of cask at Argyle, Petaluma’s foothold in Dundee, smack in the middle of Yamhill County. The reason? It was unbelievable; truly remarkable in terms of intensity, richness, balance and fineness. Brian Croser reckons it’s the nearest thing he’s tasted to a DRC that didn’t come from DRC. Perhaps a shade enthusiastic, but even more remarkable given that the wine came from a first crop from new Dijon clones at Argyle’s new Lone Star vineyard. They’re virtually impossible to find now, but the 1998 editions of Argyle’s two existing premier pinots under its Spirithouse and Nuthouse labels, present contrasting impressions of varietal character. They were also clearly amongst the region’s best performed wines from 1997. Argyle’s hierarchy of pinots also includes the Cowhouse and Willamette Valley labels. Its Spirithouse Chardonnay 1998 is also the best Oregon chardonnay I have tasted. My tastings of various recent pinots from 1996, 1997 and 1998 by Adelsheim, Amity, Erath, The Eyrie, Sokol Blosser and Ponzi, didn’t leave me much impressed. Coinciding with the turn of the new millennium, Oregon’s future with pinot is especially exciting, but the reality is that it will have very little to do with its past. Dropping down from 15,000 feet or thereabouts towards Pasco, one of the Tri-Cities in eastern Washington, I was dead certain I was on the wrong plane. So much so that I actually checked my boarding pass and showed it to a flight attendant, whose lack of incredulity at my question at least gave me hope that somebody else had asked her the same question before. It was my travelling experience, you understand, that was to blame. I have been on countless aircraft as they decent into wine regions and I guess have become accustomed to the presence of living greenery and evidence of human habitation nearby. The stark flat plains and plateaux, through which the Columbia River has carved its way through millions of years, support only very stunted, wiry natural vegetation, were not exactly what I had in mind as I scanned my porthole, looking for some tell-tale sign of viticulture. What I saw instead was absolutely nothing. I know now how Neil Armstrong felt as he peered outside the lunar module, looking for something familiar. This part of Washington is essentially a cold desert, a land of extreme seasonal variation. Hostile to most activities, its climate is however remarkably sympathetic to viticulture. Its vineyards are generally so remote and so large that they’re fully mechanised, and without constant watering this virtually hydroponic environment would cease to exist. So, thanks to the enormous Columbia River, a genuine wine culture is indeed emerging from one of the most unlikely places on earth. In the few days I was there I only saw a fragment of the extent of Washington’s wine industry, but most of that was in the company of personnel from Stimson Lane, handsomely the State’s largest maker and a subsidiary of the American Tobacco Company. With several wineries in the Columbia Valley and another (Chateau St Michelle) just outside Seattle, Stimson Lane maintains an impressive portfolio of wine from its premier labels of Northstar Merlot, Eroica Riesling and Col Solare all the way through a range of wines priced very fairly in the US market under Chateau St Michelle, Columbia Crest and other brands. You only have to taste Chateau St Michelle’s Eroica, made as a joint venture with the Moselle’s Ernst Loosen, to understand that Australia and New Zealand don’t have a mortgage on New World riesling. Made with a lightly sweetish fiinish, the 1999 wine (18.8, drink 2004-2007+) is packed with spicy apple and pear fruit, beautifully musky and aromatic, lingering, chalky and clean. The occasional botrytis-affected riesling by Chateau St Michelle is eagerly bought at high prices. For several years merlot has been considered Washington’s hallmark variety. Little wonder when you taste wine of the calibre of Northstar’s 1998 vintage and the Andrew Will Merlot of the same year. There’s a brightness and intensity about the fruit of these wines that very few Australian merlots have been able to capture which, allied with a natural richness of flavour and fineness of tight tannin, stands them apart from so many other right bank pretenders. The Northstar (18.7, drink 2006-2010) is beautifully wild, briary and lightly meaty, but there’s no hint of the brettanomyces that so many American (and indeed Australian) winemakers appear to appreciate so. Allied with powerful barrel maturation qualities (75% French), it is more thickly coated than the Andrew Will (18.6, drink 2006-2010), whose minty plum and spicy cherry/berry flavours are perfectly offset by fine-grained tannins. The Col Solare Cabernet Sauvignon is made by Chateau St Michelle in another joint venture, this time with Antinori. I was astonished to see the vineyard responsible for its fruit – a huge circular planting designed around the perimeter of a giant rotating irrigation winch pivoted exactly in its centre. This, apparently, is how viticulture began in east Washington, but strangely enough I’ve formed the view that the cool humidity generated by the irrigation sprays, plus the constant washing of the leaves as the vines are watered, actually gives something of an edge to its fruit. In an otherwise bone-dry, dusty environment, these healthy green vines stand out like beacons. Priced at $US 75, the 1996 Col Solare Cabernet Sauvignon (17.6, drink 2004-2008+) marries deeply concentrated blackberry and maraschino cherry fruit with dark, smoky oak. I found it a little advanced for its age, lacking vitality and middle palate weight, but certainly noticed the pronounced savoury astringency of its partially Tuscan heritage. While Stimson Lane makes and markets a number of capable and acceptable cabernet sauvignons, it does have a clear winner in Chateau St Michelle’s Meritage 1997 (18.8, drink 2005-2009+), a blend of 49% Cabernet Sauvignon, 49% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc. A wine of considerable poise and class, it reveals complex dusty, cedary complexity and attractive nutty development, with a foundation of intense ripe berry and plum fruit plus harmoniously integrated vanilla and chocolate oak. Another quality Meritage is the 1998 from the Cadence Tapteil Vineyard (18.1, drink 2006-2010), a very complex and succulent young wine with nuances of mint, violets, bonfire smoke and earth. Apart from some alcoholic hotness, it’s very complete and savoury. Going Rhone-ish for the moment, I was absolutely bowled over by the McCrae Syrah 1999 (18.7, drink 2007-2011), a wine whose exotic muskiness, structure and depth of piercing fleshy ripe fruit is positively Hermitage-like. Remarkable stuff; very drinkable and very stylish. With so many young vineyards in relatively untested regions, you’d have to say that the brave experiment that is the vast majority of the Washington wine industry is paying handsome dividends. Add the small plantings in regions like Walla Walla Valley to the broad acre plantings of the large landowners and major companies alongside the Columbia River, and Washington State is developing its own very distinctive wine industry based on genuine quality at most price points in which it competes. Look out for its riesling, merlot and yes, even its shiraz.
