The best Pinot and Chardonnay you've (probably) never heard of...
13 May 2020
It was 54 years ago that the first vines were planted in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. In the intervening years the region has become a hot bed of artisanal wineries and home-grown winemaking talent, hell bent on proving that the volcanic soils of the region are capable of producing some of America’s finest Pinot Noir. In more recent times, growers have found that Chardonnay is also capable of greatness, as the presence of legends like Meursault’s Dominque Lafon attests to.
Enter Ken Pahlow and Erica Landon, husband and wife team behind Walter Scott Wines – a winery that in ten years has become synonymous with some of the valley’s finest wines. Initially championed as one of the valley’s best Chardonnay addresses, they are now regarded as a power couple across both varieties, releasing a string of sell out wines year after year. Read More
Stints working alongside Dominque Lafon and local stars Mark Vlossak and Patricia Green, coupled with regular trips to the Cote d’Or, have given the pair a love for wines of place and transparency with the finely balanced structures to age. Their enviable roster of vineyards, primarily situated in the Eola-Amity hills, includes reference point sites like Seven Sisters, owned by Raj Parr and Sashi Moorman, and the remarkable X-Novo, planted and farmed by Craig Williams of Joseph Phelps fame. Winemaking draws on low intervention Burgundian influences, light toast oak, minimal racking, fluctuating proportions of whole bunch – all of which are designed to minimise interference with the individual voices of their single vineyard sites.
Today’s offer represents the 2017s that are currently in stock. A recent bottle of Sojourner Pinot Noir was gorgeous, with plenty of volcanic tang, but also a florality, wild cherry and plum fruit, and a kinetic complexity that kept evolving in the glass. 2017 was a growing season that offered cooler weather than the preceding three and as such represents a classical Willamette Valley season. The wines are imbued with a sense of cool poise and plenty of that volcanic minerality that makes this part of the world so striking. Most are ready to be enjoyed now, but all have a lovely future ahead of them.
As a mark of the current climate, we’d are delighted to be able to offer mixed cases of 6 or 12 bottles for delivery, featuring any combination of the wines below and while stocks last. Please contact your account manager, or email your selection to justbrooksorders@justerinis.com if you would like to take advantage of this mixed case opportunity. IB orders will need to be full unmixed cases.