By: AJ McClellan
We recently tasted a very impressive bottle of wine that I thought deserved a little limelight. The wine was a 1992 Eyrie South Block Vineyard Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley. The group was blinded on the wine and almost everyone jumped directly to Grand Cru Burgundy. After playing with the wine some we got a few people accusing the wine of being from CDP or possibly a very cold vintage of Barolo or Brunello. For me the wine was incredibly interesting, beautiful red fruit with crisp acidity and a lovely minerality. I was very impressed with the light body of the wine, seamless complexity and wonderful balance. There was a distinct lack of forest floor/barn yard that seemed interesting to me but the wines great minerality made up for the lacking funk. This is a perfect example of how wines from the new world can be as good if not better than bottles from the old world.
Eyrie Vineyards has had plenty of time to perfect their craft, founded in 1966 this spectacular winery produced its first wine in 1970 and their 1975 Pinot got recognition in 1979 at a blind tasting in Paris and again in 1980 in a blind tasting in Beaune.
Why this wine does not get more press I have no idea, but lets keep it a secret just between us two….