2021 Lemelson Vineyards Pinot Noir Meyer Vineyard Dundee Hills Willamette Valley 750 ml

Lemelson has graced multiple Wine Spectator Top 100 lists. It’s been poured at scores of top restaurants, and—most importantly—has received an avalanche of five-star member reviews over the years. But we've never been able to secure an allocation of their Meyer Vineyard Pinot Noir until now.

It’s always one of the absolute highlights of their lineup—especially in a legendary vintage like ‘21. Meyer is their estate vineyard that’s perched high up a steep slope in the Dundee Hills, the most prestigious and historic AVA in the Willamette Valley. It shows off dramatic red fruit and floral tones that are classic reflections of the area’s volcanic red-clay soils. 2021 was a warm year that produced beautifully ageworthy bottles, and this has opened nicely and will drink well for a decade.

Lemelson’s perfectly manicured vines have been farmed organically since inception, a practice in keeping with founder Eric Lemelson’s overarching philosophy of sustainability. In fact, when we started offering these wines, Oregon was small enough that the winery owned over 10% of the organic vineyards in the state.That allows him to use native-yeast fermentations in the winery, confident that the wild microflora are robust enough to handle the job. 

Eric, who moved to Oregon in the late ‘70s, was an environmental lawyer before falling in love with Pinot Noir and planting his first vineyard in 1995. He built and continues to improve his gravity-flow winery, which processed its first harvest in 1999, using the most environmentally sound methods and materials available.

While costly, the result of Lemelson’s powerful and comprehensive winemaking vision shines in the glass through striking, terroir-driven purity and transparency. This is what Oregon tastes like at its truest and most focused.