Vinous

• By Josh Raynolds
  Oregon Pushes the Quality Needle for Pinot (Jan 2018), 1/18/2018 (link)

  (Colene Clemens Vineyards Pinot Noir Margo Estate Oregon Red) Subscribe to see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Frenzied, 3/3/2019

  (Colene Clemens Pinot Noir Margo) Hello friends. Colene Clemens is on a roll. You may recall that our penultimate offer of 2018 was the 2015 Clemens Dopp Creek, a wine that landed the #7 spot on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list. We asked you to limit order requests to 6 bottles, and in the end, I believe our max allocations were 1-2 bottles, with dozens of latecomer orders shut out entirely. To add further context to the power of a high place on Spectator’s Top 100 list: I just got notice that Colene Clemens is about to ship the *2017* vintage of Dopp Creek up to the Seattle market. We never even got a whiff of the ’16. I assume that the winery blew through the entire remaining stock of 2015 Dopp, *and* the entire production run of 2016 Dopp in less than a month, all thanks to Tim Fish’s positive write-up. The hunger for all things Clemens isn’t limited to Dopp either. The whole lineup went from sleepy under-the-radar gem (we’ve been offering their Pinots for years) to sales-frenzied in a matter of months. Even Margo, a wine that we had no trouble offering in the 2012 and 2013 vintages, has suddenly become scarce. We went ahead and purchased the entire remaining stock of 2014 Margo available in Seattle (it’s not much), and that allows us to access the 2015 right at release. I’m certain we’ll sell through our entire stock of ’14, and I’d bet we won’t be able to reoffer the ’15. I think we all know which way the wind is blowing here. Wine Advocate: Copyrighted material withheld. We really don’t have much of the ’14, so I’ll keep this brief. Everything about this is basically the same as the ’15; the clonal selection, the elevage, etc. It was a slightly cooler vintage, and that’s reflected both in the listed alc (14.2% here), and in the profile, which is a bit more high-pitched, more in the pomegranate-fruited spectrum of red fruits. The palate has terrific breadth and saturation, and I love the resinous forest element that keeps things fresh and lively here. I only wish we had a bit more to offer.