2019 Maison Noir Wines O.P.P. Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 750 ml

A sommelier at a Michelin-starred restaurant might pour a $16,000 bottle of 1961 Latour while on the floor. But off the clock, the sprightly, fresh, ultra-modern 2019 Maison Noir O.P.P. Pinot Noir is what they’re pulling out of the wine fridge at home or ordering by the glass at the bistro down the street.

That’s because it’s one of those extremely rare bottles that delivers Willamette Valley tension, taut acidity, and floral-tinged mineral essence for around $20, made by a former top sommelier who managed the wine list at New York’s Michelin Three Star Per Se.

It’s also what we at Wine Access drink after punching out, and our personal love for this wine helped us nab today’s Burgundy-inspired beauty at a fantastic price.

Made from a single vineyard in the fog-cooled Willamette Valley, crafted in garagiste style to keep overhead low and prices competitive with the market’s best bargains, this is a phenomenal opportunity to drink somm-approved Pinot at an entry-level cost.

Maison Noir founder and winemaker André Hueston Mack knows how professional wine buyers think, because he was one—one of the best, in fact. “I was working as a sommelier at The French Laundry back when the champagne cooler was in the chef’s garage,” Mack told us at a trunk-to-trunk meet-up in a sunny vineyard, smiling behind dark Ray-Bans.

“The rack inside was rusted, so you’d pick it up and cradle it to get a bottle of Krug out and you’d get rust flakes on your suit,” chuckled Mack. “But we were being named the best restaurant in the world.” Chef Thomas Keller took such a liking to him, he ended up running the legendary wine program at Per Se.

Working with the best chefs and pouring the most expensive bottles in existence put him in mind of the people who support all that aspirational, fine-dining beauty: the dishwashers, the florists, the delivery drivers, the barbacks, the garde manger. Setting out on his own, he decided to make wine those people would love, and could afford.

He had also, since growing up in Texas, been obsessed with Burgundy. The light-footed elegance, vibrant acidity, and slight rusticity of the Pinots coming out of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, often from organic farms, reminded him of the classic Beaune style. “I felt like they were my people,” Mack told us. “Back then it wasn’t commercialized. They were hippies who decided to make wine.”

Those connections helped him gain access to a vineyard that he’s been using for this bottling since 2013. The farming is sustainable, allowing the fast-draining, ancient marine sedimentary soils to shine, inflecting the Pinot with mineral verve. Picking is done early to preserve the crystalline acids.

All the value goes straight into the bottle—a brilliant, no-fuss bargain that’s easily one of the best bottles of Willamette Valley Pinot.