2018 Redgate Vineyard Estate Pinot Noir Willamette Valley is sold out.

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Locals-Only Willamette Valley Pinot

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    2018 Redgate Vineyard Estate Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 750 ml

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    • Curated by unrivaled experts
    • Choose your delivery date
    • Temperature controlled shipping options
    • Get credited back if a wine fails to impress

    Fall Chinook and Redgate Pinot: Heaven on Earth

    The 2018 Regate Pinot Noir is one of the most stunning Pinot values we’ve ever offered from Willamette Valley. Grown on a tiny four-acre vineyard in the mid-Willamette Valley in a stellar vintage, it’s bursting with red fruits intermingling with Chinese five spice and cloves. Light and zesty with mouthwatering acidity, fine-grained tannins, and a kiss of mushroom and earth on the finish. 

    Our fishing guide friend led us to this historic find. This is a U.S. exclusive on a wine sold only at the winery, and in a couple Willamette Valley retail shops and fine dining restaurants within an hour’s drive. You won’t find it anywhere else, just as you’re not likely to find any Willamette Valley Pinot Noir that delivers this kind of quality, balance, and deliciousness at this price. Now’s the time to stock up, because only 500 cases were produced, and we got a small share of that.

    The first time we popped a cork of the Redgate Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, it was to the sound of a fresh-caught Chinook salmon sizzling skin-side down in a cast iron pan. During our fall trip to Oregon we built in an extra day to hit the river with our friend Laird, a novelist who also happens to have written the book (two, actually) on Oregon fishing. 

    Normally Laird catches the fish and we handle the wine on these trips, but he insisted on sharing the Redgate with us, since it’s made by his buddy Steve Dunn. We were impressed, to say the least. It was heaven with the fatty, pink-fleshed fish that we (well, Laird) had caught that day. As we turned the bottle and read the label, we told him we were surprised that we didn’t know it. 

    “Surprised? I’m not! This is Willamette locals only,” Laird said, grinning through his massive beard. “It barely makes it twelve miles from the winery!”

    We took that as a challenge. We called up Steve Dunn and had him send us a few bottles for judging panel, and the Redgate Estate Pinot pleased us just as much then as when we’d first tasted it at Laird’s place near the Alsea river. We got on the phone and offered to take as much of his tiny production as we could. Since Steve sells most of his Pinot bottle by bottle, case by case at the winery (and to the Salem-area accounts he “self-distributes” to), he gave us a pretty sweet deal on a big order—but one that’s not as big as we would have liked. 

    There’s a reason Steve makes so little wine: His estate Pinot comes from his own tiny vineyard, a four-acre plot he planted in 2006. Located west of Salem in the mid-WIllamette Valley, the Redgate is subject to the cool ocean breezes that blow from the Pacific through the Siletz River Valley, keeping the Pinot nice and brisk and vivacious. This was especially important during the hot and dry 2018 season, which ended up perfect thanks to a little well-timed rainfall a few weeks before harvest. A few cooler weeks at the end of the season allowed Steve to leave the clusters on the vines, picking with flavors, acids, and sugars all at ideal levels. 

    The result is a Willamette Pinot that outpunches its weight in a big way. We’re claiming cases for ourselves, and recommend anyone who could use a food-friendly every-night red do the same. 

    And from now on, we’ll let Laird catch the fish—and pick the wine.