From: jbrewer@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (John Brewer)
Newsgroups: rec.food.drink
Subject: Oregon Pinot Noirs
Date: 29 Dec 92 23:59:34 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.


Well, I'm glad to see that someone way back in Illinois is interested in
Oregon Pinot Noir.  Here is my personal list of favorites (in no
particular order):

	Redhawk (Reserve; if you can find some of the old 1988 Stangeland
	Vineyards stuff on the shelf, and you like a northern Cote du
	Nuits, you'll enjoy it as well -- I'm still drinking mine...)
		Maker of relatively (for West Coast PN, at least) intense
		wines based on spicy oak and blackberry/intense raspberry

	Domaine Drouhin (especially 1988)
		SMOOTH, deep strawberry fruit with soft yet balanced oak;
		closest thing to Gevrey-Chambertin made on West Coast

	St. Innocent (regular and Reserve; all vintages)
		medium intensity strawberry/raspberry flavors with toasty
		oak (sometimes a little spicy); styled in model of
		Mory-St. Denis (I think so, at least); benefits from 2-4
		years aging (my 1987 is drinking well now)

	Cooper Mountain (regular and Reserve; all vintages)
		Another wine in Cote du Beaune intensity levels; Reserve
		is a little pricey for what you get (I think); strawberry
		flavors and toasty oak are predominant

	Lange (regular and Reserve)
		If you're into the "barnyard" nose thing (what I usually
		refer to as "intense strawberry"), this is your wine;
		neither wine merits much bottle aging, but both are medium
		intensity with balanced levels of spicy oak


Most of these run in the $12-20 range (in OR).  For a cheaper wine with
GOOD fruit characteristics, try the following:  Grateful Red (Redhawk) -
$6; Secret House - $7; Laurel Ridge - $8 (there are others; I just can't
remember them right now...).

You might avoid the following because of their lack of quality (as I see
it):

	Ponzi (all bottlings; TOTALLY overrated, overpriced, overextracted
	and over-oaked)

	Amity (fruit usually overdone by toasty oak)

	Sokol Blosser (ALL bottlings; hard to find fruit under oak,
	stemmy tannins on a regular basis)

	Knudsen-Erath (not as bad as the above, but usually a very smokey
	wine with too much tannin and too little fruit)


Most other wineries are hit-and-miss (Tualatin and Shafer are excellent
examples of wineries with great successes -- Tualatin 1987 -- and great
misses; include Elk Cove and Oak Knoll in this group).


By the way, my wife and I are just putting out a Preliminary Issue of our
newly-created newsletter for Northwest (OR, WA, ID) wines (yeah, we know,
there are a million wine newsletters already) and we need some critical
evaluation of what we've done so far.  If you'd like a shot a ripping
someone else's efforts at wine reviews to pieces, just drop me your postal
address in the next couple of weeks and a copy of our Prelim issue will
appear at your door, complete with survey form to record your brutally
blunt comments on.  Seriously, we'd appreciate anyone's inputs who'd like
to help.  Thanks in advance.

To Illinois -- hope these comments are helpful.  Let me know what you see
on the shelf back there from the NW...


John Brewer
jbrewer@vice.ico.tek.com
Portland, OR
Newsgroups: rec.food.drink