Argyle Pinot Noir Reserve, Willamette Valley, USA

菱花珍藏黑皮诺干红葡萄酒

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I tasted the 2016 Pinot Noir Reserve from a 375-milliliter bottle, although the price given is for a 750-milliliter bottle. Medium ruby, the 2016 Pinot Noir Reserve is scented of blackberries and black and red cherries with accents of oolong tea leaves, tree bark, mushroom and earth. The palate is light to medium-bodied, concentrated and earthy, with a grainy frame and juicy freshness, finishing long. 6,294 cases produced.

The 2015 Pinot Noir Reserve is very pale ruby-garnet in color with a nose of bright red cranberry and Bing cherry with notions of forest floor, tree bark and bitter peel. It's light-bodied, crisp and red fruited with spicy hints, framed by very soft tannins and satisfying freshness. 7,000 cases produced.

Bright, pale ruby in color, the 2014 Pinot Noir Reserve delivers expressive kirsch, pomegranate and raspberry leaves notes with underlying lavender, rosemary and underbrush hints. Medium-bodied with loads of energy and grace in the mouth, it has exuberant red cherry and earth flavors with great length and depth.

The 2012 Pinot Noir Reserve is a blend of five vineyards that includes a newer planting of Spirithill and sees 30% new oak. It has a light, almost conservative bouquet with raspberry, crushed strawberry and undergrowth scents, perhaps a little too straitlaced for my preference. The palate is medium-bodied with crisp tannin and good acidity, but it is missing some grace and finesse toward the finish that feels a tad clumsy compared to its peers.

Sourced largely from Lone Start Vineyard but with contributions from Knudsen and Spirit Hill, the Argyle 2011 Pinot Noir Reserve displays sweetly ripe cherry and red raspberry with a confitured aspect rare in this vintage. Smoky black tea adds some interest. For all of its up-front sweetness, this texturally spare Pinot then finishes with brash juiciness accompanied by slightly detached tartness and lemon rind piquancy such as characterize so many of its vintage companions. I imagine it will drink well through 2015, and perhaps it will some gain polish and further complexity. Co-founder and long-time director of Argyle Rollin Soles – for extensive information on whose background and methodology consult my issue 202 report – officially stepped-down from his post in March, though he will continue to advise the new director of winemaking, Wisconsin-born Nate Klostermann, who has been Soles’ assistant for almost 8 years, having arrived in Oregon via Petaluma, Argyle’s co-founding and long-time parent company. (Soles will now focus on his own Roco winery, on whose recent releases I again report in this issue.) No stock of Argyle Brut from either 2004 or torrid, early-harvested 2003 was set-aside for late-release as “Extended Tirage,” so the next installment of that consistently revelatory and profound wine will be a 2005 in a couple of years. “I was thinking about what a drag that fact is when I was putting together our tasting,” remarked Soles, channeling my thoughts. As in awe of and delighted with Argyle’s sparkling wines as I am – wines I dream might yet inspire consumers and vintners to conspire in the flowering of an Oregon sparkling wine culture – I continue to find their still wines far less successful, not to mention far less-attractively priced. In his 28 years at Argyle, 2011 is the only vintage in which Soles has elected to chaptalize even a single lot; but then, he offers climatological data to suggest that the last time things were as cool for the aggregate Willamette growing season was in 1954, when nobody was concerned yet about ripening wine grapes! Tel. (503) 538-8520