Monday, March 11, 2019

Oregon Pinot Noir - On The Nose

Lenné Estate is in Yamhill County, in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.  They say "site is everything," and they have a minimalist approach to making wine.  They say the grapes are good enough to do the heavy lifting themselves.  They boast of having some of the poorest soil in the county, which makes the vines work harder to squeeze out their tiny, concentrated grapes.  The 20-acre vineyard produces three different lines of Pinot Noir, and this is about their estate brand.

Their website proclaims "deep root Pinot Noir," which I don't think has anything to do with Dr. Cross Deep-Root Hair Oil, a late-night mainstay on some flamethrower radio station across the border from Texas.  If it does, I stand corrected.

I don't know who belongs to the "nez" on the label, but it’s quite distinctive.  Maybe it's Len the hen's profile, the guy who started his family's migration from London to Oregon, maybe not.  It makes me think of Danny Kaye, but I doubt that’s who it is.

This Oregon Pinot Noir is extremely dark in every way.  It's tough to see through a glass of it and it's tough not to notice the blackness in the nose, too.  Black currant, black tea and black coffee dominate.  The palate is also shrouded from light.  The tea note is perky and the dark fruit lively.  Nice acidity and a lengthy finish put a nice bow on the package. 


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