2017 Jolete Pinot Noir Cuvee Select Willamette Valley 750 ml

The first time we offered Joleté, Wine Access members made the tiny-production Pinot Noir a one-hour sellout. Today’s 2017 Joleté Pinot Noir Cuvée Select Willamette Valley is primed for the same kind of performance: It earned a 92-point score from James Suckling, and was named an Editors’ Choice by Wine Enthusiast, which called it “virtually peerless” at its price.

The amount Wine Access members took home last time is more than the entire production of Joleté’s 2017 Cuvée Select. They’re sold out at the winery, and aside from one lucky restaurant in suburban Portland, we’ve got the only cases. With its vibrant red aromas of baked cherries, strawberry compote, and cola spice, the Cuvée Select is beautifully layered on the palate, bursting with red and black fruits, plum notes, pomegranate, and baking spice seasoning. That kind of 92-point value packed into an under-$25 bottle is bound to move fast.

We first sipped the 2017 Cuvée Select on our last trip through the Willamette Valley, as we were enjoying a rare filet au poivre at Tucci restaurant in Lake Oswego. As we savored the wine, we thought of our last offer—how we had sold double our original allocation—and decided to give our friend, Joleté proprietor Tom Mortimer, a call. We dialed him up from the high-backed booth and asked for 300 cases off the bat.

“No way,” Tom said. We waited for the sound of his laughter—he had to be joking. He knew how well his Pinot had sold last time, and the charming Tucci was the only place in the country pouring Joleté. Had he promised it all to them? We were about to ask when he told us how little of the 2017 existed. “We only made 234 cases.” 

Joleté first got our attention a few years back when, fresh off tasting triple-digit showpiece Burgundies and single-vineyard Dundee gems at the Willamette Valley’s International Pinot Noir Celebration, we ordered a glass at a bistro in McMinnville. The way Joleté outperformed its price made it the must-have Pinot of that trip.

Once we looked into Joleté, the quality shouldn’t have surprised us. It’s the under-the-radar brand of the team behind Le Cadeau, which has racked up a bevy of 90+ scores from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator. Joleté shares Le Cadeau’s winemaker, Jim Sanders. And as if the Joleté name needed more gilding, the wine also benefits from the input of Burgundian consultant Pierre Millemann, who lives in Nuits-St. Georges and jets out to the Willamette Valley twice a year to help Tom and Jim turn out their spectacular Pinots. 

The wine is sourced from three beautiful hillside vineyards—two in the Chehalem Mountains and one in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA—and aged for 16 months in French oak. A minuscule 234 cases were produced, and it’s already sold out at the winery. Swing by Tucci for a glass if you’re in the town of Lake Oswego, or claim your case here. But if you want to get it from Wine Access, you’d better be quick.