2023 Benmar Pinot Noir Alpine Lakes Dundee Hills Willamette Valley 750 ml

In this business, nothing’s greater than getting in on the ground floor of an exciting new winery. The thrill of discovering a new star—and of realizing the wines will never be less expensive—is truly hard to beat.

So when we tasted Benmar’s 2023 Alpine Lakes Dundee Hills Pinot Noir, we were grinning ear to ear. We could easily understand how it earned a 96-point score from Decanter magazine. Harder to believe was that this was just the second vintage for the Oregon winery.

Grown on a prized site in the Willamette Valley prized Dundee Hills AVA, made by a Rochioli-trained wine-industry lifer, this is a seriously poised, complex Pinot Noir that stands with anything coming out of the state. And outside of a few plugged-in somms in Portland, it seems like no one has heard of Benmar. But that won’t last long.

Once the wine bug bit Greg Bybee, the next step was obvious… to him.

He dropped everything to get a job at Rochioli—first in the tasting room, just to get an “in,” then in the cellar with any winemaking work they’d let him do. Eventually, over the course of five years, he’d been involved in nearly every part of the process.

In the decade since, Greg has taken that knowledge and worked toward the ultimate goal of opening his own winery. But rather than take up in Sonoma, he looked north to Oregon’s Willamette Valley, which was still full of untapped potential. His first vintage, 2022, debuted to 95-point praise. The 2023 Alpine Lakes is even better.

Greg took Rochioli’s insistence on prime vineyards to heart, sourcing Pinot Noir from the heart of the Dundee Hills, Oregon’s most prestigious growing area. It’s a tiny, six-and-a-half acre site he can’t name not far from NYSA Vineyard, a longtime star in the Ken Wright portfolio.

He completely destemmed the grapes to bring out the fruit profile of the wine, then treated the grapes to a 72-hour cold soak—extracting rich fruit flavors without harsh tannins—before fermentation. After pressing, he barreled down into 30% new French oak from top coopers, gilding the wine with a 15 month élevage in barrel. The result is stunning, announcing Benmar as a winery to watch in the region.