The coldest vintage in Willamette Valley history. The wines from this vintage are some of the most unique in my career. The Pinot Noirs are in perhaps the best overall window of their existence.
2011 Souris opens a little tight but is a beautiful wine. Very much in the Burgundian style, with lovely dark red fruits, woodsy notes, and dry red earth. While this is a pretty, and elegant, red fruited wine when opened but as the bottle is consumed it usually becomes more black fruited and loaded with autumnal notes. It adds weight and aromatics evolving into a gorgeous bottle of wine. I would drink these sooner rather than later.
2011 Whistling Ridge and Durant continue to be wines with lovely aromatics and have found the body to balance the acidity. They are still savory and lighter bodied wines, but such fun expressions of Pinot Noir. I would drink or hold and feel that they are, finally, in a really enjoyable spot.
Whites are linear and interesting, but definitely should be drunk up in the near term.
*Under natural cork there is always a distinct amount of bottle variation. As the wines age, this variation becomes more distinct. Regarding the notes here, all wines have been tasted recently, but for all bottles YMMV.*
**This post covers Matello wines**
updated 8/14/2024