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Close Your Eyes … And Just Smell
The first time, of course, was in Alsace. We were walking the vines above the Hansel and Gretel hamlet of Wettolsheim with our old friend Francois Barmes. It was October 2008 and after a long, dry, extended growing season, the Pinot Gris had turned gilded, the prized Gewurztraminer was small berry golden. The sun was shining, the leaves brilliant green against a turquoise sky. Francois stopped, his baby blue eyes, as always, beaming. "Close your eyes … and just smell." He said. And then we understood all we needed to know about the two spiciest, raciest, and most temperamental white varieties on the planet.
There's nothing quite like Pinot Gris when it's just right. The Chardonnay-like lushness, married with sweet Anjou pear spice, all buttressed by scintillating acidity is one of a kind. As to Gewurztraminer, it's often almost too much, with its lychee-like concentration and complexity, and disarmingly sweet spice richness and density. But when the growing season is dry, cool and oh-so-long, it's that dash of black pepper that keeps all the raciness dangling, and in perfect check.
In Alsace, as Francois was so quick to point out on that sunny autumn day, Pinot Gris often blows up. The heat is just too intense, and when those berries come to complete physiological ripeness, sugars have spiked too high. The finished wine is wildly concentrated, but also overly alcoholic. This is a variety "qui aime bien le froid" ("that really likes the cold"), particularly at the beginning of the growing season. When Nature gets too far ahead, Pinot Gris is clumsy. But if she does her calisthenics, nothing compares.
So when we finally cornered Laurent Montalieu, Oregon's most brilliant white wine craftsman, and asked the Bordeaux émigré how he accounts for the scintillating purity of his famed 2011 Solena Estate Pinot Gris, he explained without hesitation. "There are three things we need in order to make Pinot Gris in Oregon that rivals the greats of Alsace. First, a long growing season. Second, near drought conditions. But last, we need tiny yields. We got all three in 1999. Then again in 2008. But never have I seen anything like the freak show of 2011."
For three months, Montalieu would tell, the Pinot Gris seemed like a disaster in the making. The vines were well behind, yet the potential crop load was large. "I've been in Oregon for a long time, but I'd never seen potential yields so high, so I did what I had to do. We dropped more than half the harvest in the early months. There was really no other way to go."
Nowhere is hindsight more perfect than in the winegrowing business. When the sun arrived in August -- it wouldn't blink for the next three months -- the Solena Pinot Gris yields were well below the norm. Clusters were sparse. Berries pert and small. From August-October, Nature turned on the jets like never before, delivering the warmest, driest Indian summer growing season Oregon has ever known. It wouldn't be until the third and fourth week of October, when the most talented white wine maker of the Willamette Valley trekked his rows, saw the pinkish-golden hue and smelled the stunning pungency of Pinot Gris, that he pulled the trigger. Little Pinot Gris would make it to Montalieu's crusher, but that which did would have made Francois Barmes proud.
Brilliant light gold to the edge, infused with luscious spicy pear aromatics, lightly tinged with lychee. A blend of 94% electrifying Pinot Gris, with a smidgen of highwire, black pepper Gewurztraminer fireworks, Montalieu's 2011 Solena Estate Pinot Gris is -- by the winemaker's own admission -- the finest effort of the winemaker's storied career.
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Tasting Notes
2011 Solena Estate Pinot Gris Oregon
"Brilliant pale golden to the edge. Intense aromas of ripe pear and apple, a lacing of sweet spice, all gently tinged with lychee. Rich and powerful on the attack -- dense and concentrated, yet still marvelously high-toned -- packed with ripe pear, laced with oriental spice, black pepper and pineapple. But it's the finish here that tells the story of the coldest start -- and the warmest finish -- of any growing season in Oregonian history. Superb freshness and persistence here, perfectly buttressing all that spicy opulence. Drink now or age for up the 5 years in a cool cellar."
-- WineAccess Travel Log
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