Wine critic Steven Baker follows the cool climate back roads of Oregon Pinot noir country and shares his journal. His business, Authentica Wines, is a membership based wine club.

~ May 2011

Some winemakers and chefs today are frustrated rock stars. They think their creativity in the kitchen or their resourcefulness and precision in the winery should earn them acolytes and adoring fans, not to mention lots of money and recognition.

They begin to believe the laudatory reviews of their work (and price it accordingly) and seek to bask in the passing glory of popular culture, forgetting that people have been cooking and making wine for thousands of years. After all, as I remind customers who are disappointed when a coveted wine sells out, it's just an agricultural product made year after year.

But there are the truly talented who keep a low profile and don't submit their wines for judging, content instead to just "do the work" and let the chips fall where they may. And ironically, some of them are rock stars, as in the case of Jay Somers, winemaker of this month's feature. Jay plays a pretty mean guitar in his spare time, when he's not making some of the finest wines in Oregon for Holloran or his own J. Christopher label.

But Jay's various talents aside, it certainly doesn't hurt that the fruit for this month's featured wine is from the impeccable and venerable Le Pavillon vineyard in the fabled Red Hills of Dundee. Planted during the "first wave" of vineyard development at the epicenter of Oregon's wine growing heartland, Le Pavillon was established in the early 1970's, making it one of the oldest pinot noir vineyards in Oregon. In fact, at nearly forty years old, the pinot noir from this vineyard grows on vines that rival the age of many grand cru and premier cru vineyards in Burgundy.

Now farmed biodynamically and kept to very meager yields, the deep volcanic (jory) soils of Le Pavillon produce incredible pinot noir and riesling, the latter a real sleeper that many think should be the flagship white varietal for the Willamette Valley.

Maybe that's why Dr. Loosen, one of Germany's greatest riesling producers has teamed up with Jay to produce a couple of wines together under their own label.

All things considered, Holloran should be one of Oregon's most sought after old vine gems, but it slips under the radar year after year - known only to a few long timers in the industry who regard J. Christopher and the Holloran wines some of the finest in Oregon. This is probably due to the state of the industry, driven as it is by high profille score seekers and consumers who, through no fault of their own, only know what they read in the wine press. And that spotlights one of the major problems with the current culture of stardom and rating services. How many great wines pass under the radar because the owners and winemakers don't submit their work to the major wine press? Many.

The Holloran "Le Pavillon" Dundee Hills Pinot Noir, 2008 is a sumptuous wine, redolent of black cherry, dark red fruits, hints of lavender and violets, the classic calling card of Red Hills Pinot Noir. It is elegant and finely textured with ample weight for even those who sometimes find pinot noir too light for their taste. But there's nothing ponderous or heavy about this dark garnet beauty - it slides over the palate with seamless grace and Finishes with the finely integrated acidity so characteristic of the great 2008 vintage.

All in all its one of the finest of the vintage - and that's saying quite a bit considering the overall quality of 2008. There were less than a thousand cases made of this extremely fine Red Hills pinot noir and just a few dozen remain. This will drink very well in the near term, but will age gracefully for 5 to 7 years if you like to cellar your wines. Don't miss one of the unheralded, truly "underground" treasures of 2008.

~ Steve Baker

Holloran
"Le Pavillon" Dundee Hills Pinot Noir, 2008
Release Price: $40.00

Pinot Underground Recent Columns

January, 2010 ~ Crowley
February, 2010 ~ Evesham Wood
March, 2010 ~ Westrey
May, 2010 ~ Evening Land
June, 2010 ~ Iota
July, 2010 ~ Crowley (part2)
Aug / Sept 2010~ Ayres
October 2010 ~ Eyrie
November 2010 ~ Evening Land
Jan / Feb 2011 ~ Tendril
Mar/Apr 2011 ~ Colene Clemens