2019 Ponzi Vineyards Pinot Noir Tavola Willamette Valley 750 ml

We’ve learned that if you’re looking for incredible value from a storied winery, make a beeline for the “young vine” cuvée: Turley has their Juvenile, the Harlan family has The Mascot, and the Ponzi family has Tavola.

Our resident Master of Wine, Vanessa Conlin, fell hard for this Pinot Noir’s exuberant personality. Thoroughly rewarding now but also able to stand up for a few years in the cellar, it offers pure pleasure by itself or on the dinner table.

Ponzi is the story of the dedication of Willamette Valley pioneers Dick and Nancy Ponzi, who relocated from California to Oregon in the late 1960s to make wine. With French sensibilities firmly in place thanks to many research trips to Burgundy, their small 20-acre farm flourished and grew into the legacy that is now Ponzi Vineyards.

In the 1990s, second-generation Roumier-trained winemaker Luisa Ponzi began a string of outstanding vintages, creating wines with the classic texture and finesse of Burgundy complemented by the red fruit and richness conjured by the Willamette Valley..

Tavola is produced from Ponzi’s LIVE Certified Sustainable Avellana Vineyard along with other sustainably grown plots in the Chehalem Mountains, Yamhill-Carlton, and Eola-Amity Hills AVAs. Luisa was so thrilled with the quality of the fruit that came in the cool, “throwback year” of 2019 that she raised this wine in 20% new French oak. 

This is Oregon Pinot Noir at its softest and most approachable, a benchmark from one of America’s premier Pinot-growing areas and a first family of Willamette winemaking. Wine Enthusiast put it best: “Ponzi wines are considered some of the most elegant wines in the world, and certainly have helped put Oregon on the wine map.”