Region: Oregon - Willamette Valley
Grapes: Pinot Noir
Alcohol: 13.6%
Notes on the Wine
Bright ruby-red. Highly expressive, spice-accented red and blue fruit preserve, sassafras, earth and lavender scents show wonderful clarity and mineral lift. Sweet and energetic on the palate, offering intense black raspberry, boysenberry and cherry cola flavors that deepen steadily with air while maintaining vivacity. This weighty yet nervy Pinot finishes with powerful, spicy thrust and silky, slowly building tannins that fold smoothly into the wine's strikingly persistent fruit and floral notes.
Notes on the Producer
Patricia Green Cellars is located in the Ribbon Ridge Appellation of the Willamette Valley on a 52 acre estate purchased in 2000 by Patty Green and Jim Anderson. The winery, and thus the two friends and business partners, are noted for producing a tremendously broad selection of vineyard designated Pinot Noirs from several vineyards representing some of the better sites in the Willamette Valley with a particular emphasis over the years on Ribbon Ridge, Dundee Hills and the Chehalem Mountain appellations. Patricia Green cellars focus is to produce Pinot Noirs that show the distinct characteristics of the sites and vintage within the context of the wines. Due to this all of the vineyards the winery either maintains or purchases fruit from are extremely well-tended sites that seek to grow the best fruit possible through rigorous attention to detail on every single vine. Over the years as many as 20 different bottlings of Pinot Noir have been produced in any given vintage. To ensure that these wines are of the highest quality possible, are unique in and of themselves and distinct across the range of wines the decisions we made about the quality of each barrel is quite rigorous ensuring that each bottling represents the best possible wine from each vineyard and vintage.
At a larger level the philosophy of the winery is fairly simple: Do what needs to be done. The two partners of Patricia Green Cellars feel that you simply cannot enter into a vintage with pre-conceived notions of what is going to happen, what the fruit is going to be like, what the wines are going to be like and what is going to need to be done to turn fruit into the best wines possible. There are certain approaches and techniques that will obviously be applied, however the intensity of those actions is fluid. That fluid nature would extend to nearly every aspect of the winemaking. Ultimately things are done as simply as is possible. The 14th century friar William of Ockham stated that "one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything." This is the physics theory known as Occam's Razor. It applies to winemaking though, too. With over 50 combined years worth of winemaking experience the two partners are quite possibly the longest-partnered winemaking duo in Oregon and they have come to realize that the hardest thing to do is to do the simplest things. However, by paring down, as much as is possible and as much as is sensible, they have found that the wines are better off for it.
Of course to be a truly successful winery one must start with very strong raw materials. That is where the strength of Patricia Green Cellars lives as a winery. Over the years an ever-increasingly strong set of vineyards has made up the core of the winery’s Pinot Noir volume. The crowning jewel initially was landing what is the Estate Vineyard with the purchase of the property back in 2000. After that the near yearly search to bring in extraordinarily high-quality sites, most times with older vines serving as a part of the equation, continues and the winery continues to be able to release unique wines from terrific sites that drive the reputation and finances of the winery. At this juncture Patricia Green Cellars has now assembled what is certainly its strongest collection of well-farmed, high-quality sites with great reputations in its entire existence. The dogged determination to continue to produce the best bottlings of vineyard designated Pinot Noirs, to continually show the willingness and ability to craft critically-acclaimed Pinots from new sites and sell them on a vintage in and vintage out basis has opened the door to this day where a stable of vineyards reflects the winery’s reputation and the winemakers’ skill level.
Patricia Green Cellars is a unique winery because of the collaborative approach to running the business from nearly all perspectives, a dedication to particular sites being able to produced uniquely special Pinot Noirs and a willingness to continually evolve, adapt and grow as a winery, winemakers and winery owners.
