2015 Raptor Ridge Winery Barrel Select Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 750 ml

Hand-Selected From Over 200 Barrels

Taste winemaker Scott Shull’s stupendous 2015 Raptor Ridge “Barrel Select” Pinot Noir, and you’ll swear that the under-$30 price was mistakenly slapped on a wine that should cost twice as much. Assembled from prime Willamette vineyard sources that include Gran Moraine, Shea, and Temperance Hill, the 2015 Barrel Select hails from a vintage that Wine Spectator dubbed a 95-pointer, and predicted: “could be the state’s most extraordinary.” James Suckling called the 2015 Barrel Select “an opulent Pinot Noir that shows aromas of dried cherries, raspberries and blueberries,” and noting its complex “plums and smoke,” and “velvety tannins.” Shull has seen over 20 growing seasons in the Willamette Valley and has over-delivered with this wine from Oregon’s tremendous 2015 vintage. $26.99 per bottle on six or more, shipping included on 4.

The 2014 vintage ushered in a phenomenal year for wine in Oregon—HOWEVER the 2015 growing season all but bumped it from everybody’s mind. Wine Spectator said that 2015 “could be the state’s most extraordinary vintage,” and reported that, because of the unique weather conditions, the vintage might have no real precedent. One famous Oregon winemaker went looking for one, and found it, six decades back: His research showed that the same weather conditions that marked the 2015 Willamette vintage also preceded the 1959 Burgundy harvest, which turned out to be “magnificent and long-lived.”

With such riches at his disposal, Scott Shull set to work crafting a wine that would translate the spoils of his meticulously-farmed estate vineyards—and those of famed vineyards like Shea, Gran Moraine, and Temperance Hill—to the glass.

Schull and his team tasted from over 200 different barrels, making trial cuvées, with the goal of assembling a Pinot Noir that expresses Raptor Ridge’s sources from around the Willamette Valley. The final Barrel Select consists of Pinot that was aged in 29 percent new French oak, which adds a warm, spiced note to the elegant wine. This is a ripe and savory, supple and pleasing Pinot from one of Oregon’s landmark vintages.