2017 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Reserve

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Patty Green, 5/31/2019

  (Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Reserve) Hello friends. The end of an era fast approaches. Doubtless there’s extra poignancy to the 2016 and 2017 vintages at Patricia Green Cellars, knowing that they’ll be the final vintages bearing Patty’s direct stamp (see here for a lovely In Memoriam from Oregon Wine Press). But even setting aside the emotional aspect, the wines themselves are just beautiful, as they always have been. The main thrust of today’s offer is a wine we’ve only been able to offer twice before (the 2009 and 2013 vintages), and one that has become difficult to source in the northwest post-Spectator review. We bought as much as we were allowed to, because this also happens to be Patricia Green Cellars’ most accessibly-priced Pinot Noir: [Note: we’ll also have a bonus wine; the first-ever Chardonnay we’ve been able to offer from the Patty lineup.] Wine Spectator: Copyrighted material withheld. [Note: the 2016 Reserve landed the #39 spot on Spectator’s 2018 Top 100 list; that was with the same 93pt score, the same $27 price, and about half the 2017’s production. This has a great chance at making it back-to-back honors.] The Patty lineup contains a dazzling number of single vineyard Pinots, and then this Reserve, which always over-delivers its price point. Get a load of Jim Anderson’s description: This is extremely high quality wine across the board. Four Dundee Hill site ranging in age from 18-44 years make up about 30% of the bottling. Another third (slightly more) comes from our Estate Vineyard and almost all of the rest from Freedom Hill. There are seriously great bones here and this wine will stand up to many, many much higher priced bottlings. AVA's Represented in Reserve Blend: Ribbon Ridge, Dundee Hills, Chehalem Mountains & Willamette Valley Clones Represented in Reserve Blend: Pommard- 44.40%, Dijon Clone 115- 27.03%, Dijon Clone 114- 13.51%, Wadensvil- 7.34%, Dijon Clone 777- 4.63%, Coury Clone- 1.93%, Mariafeld- 1.16%. This is a glorious expression of the 2017 vintage in the Willamette, whose best examples are expressing a purity, sap, and crunchy fruit character I haven’t seen in a few years now. The nose combines red cherry fruit with that ineffable Oregon earthiness, somewhere between forest floor and coastal pine bough. Lovely. The palate (13.7% listed alc) layers in a solid mineral core to complement all that crunchy red fruit, and this is texturally lovely, at once seamless and energetic. If you’re going to overpay for Copper River salmon over the next few weeks, it helps to counterbalance that by underpaying for exceptional Oregon Pinot.