2012 Lange Winery Pinot Noir Three Hills Cuvee Willamette Valley 750 ml

Willamette Valley’s “Record-Breaking” 2012 Vintage — Pinot Noir of the Year

Since the late 1980s, Oregon’s winegrowers have insisted that only in Willamette Valley could the New World give birth to Pinot Noirs capable of rivaling the greats of Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits. On paper, there was plenty of merit in that assertion.

Damp winters make for high water tables. Soils are generally poor and rocky, naturally limiting yields and enhancing concentration while keeping acids firm and vibrant. If the summer is hot and dry, sugars can spike, even as vines shrug off hydric stress, quenching their thirst on the winter rain settled deep in the substrata.

The argument is compelling. But there was just one problem: For 20 years, beginning in 1992, not a single vintage followed that “perfect” growing season script — until the summer of 2012.

Critics called 2012 in Willamette Valley “Oregon’s first 100-point vintage” and “one for the record books.” The summer was warm and exceedingly dry. Jesse Lange told us that barely a drop of rain fell in the Dundee Hills from June to the end of August! Yields were down nearly 25% from the norm. Clusters were tight-fisted and correspondingly small, with berries “not much bigger than a BB or a mountain blueberry.” The maturation cycle picked up speed throughout the summer months. The call to harvest came early. Natural sugar readings were some of the highest on record, even as tannins remained dusty and refined, and acids firm and vibrant.

If you are Pinot Noir enthusiast and you have yet to fill your cellar with 2012s from the likes of Josh Bergström, Laurent Montalieu, Lynn Penner-Ash, and Jesse Lange, you are making a mistake of monumental proportions. If Penner-Ash’s and Montalieu’s wines are exemplars of elegance and finesse, Bergström’s a treatise in structure and class, Jesse Lange’s 2012 Three Hills Cuvée — a strong candidate for our Wine of the Year — is hedonism in a bottle!

The 2012 Lange Estate Three Hills Cuvée is deep ruby/black to the rim. Luscious aromas of black raspberry, black cherry, and lavender, touched with new-wood cedar. Rich, dense, and weighty on entry, almost chewy in texture, packed with a powerhouse mix of crushed red- and black-fruit preserves, smoke, and black cherry cola, all the vintage opulence bracketed by dusty-tannin backbone. Drink now for its primary-fruit flash, or far better, lay down one of our favorite 2012 Oregon Pinot Noirs until the early 2020s. Trust us: Handsome dividends will be paid to the patient!

$50 on release. $34 today. The last 300 bottles are now up for grabs of this absolutely voluptuous 2012 from superstar winemaker Jesse Lange.