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DeLancelotti Vineyards Pinot Noir 2008
$65 / bottle
JULY 2010
Drinkability: Decant, or wait 1-3 years
Availability: Good for now
DeLancelotti Vineyard was first brought to the public's attention when winemaker Josh Bergstrom began crafting a single-vineyard wine from the site. While Josh may not own the vineyard, he certainly had reason to use the fruit - his sister and brother-in-law, the DeLancelotti's, own the vineyard! In fact, the De Lancelotti vineyard and family home are a pitching wedge away from Bergstrom's own facility on the slopes of Chehalem Mountain., outside of Newberg, Oregon.
Not content with being simply being related to Josh Bergstrom, the De Lancelotti's have created a virtual wine empire in the tiny wine town of Dundee, Oregon. Long known as a dumpy wayside, that whistle-stop town has been brought into the wine business, although not without dissent. Plywood signs castigating the new money in Dundee have been a long-time fixture there. It's as if some residents are thinking, "my granddaddy and my daddy make a crappy living farming in these hills, and it's my right to make a crappy living doing the same damn thing."
Luckily, the vision and money brought in by the wine folks are making a big improvement - including some significant improvements funded by the De Lancelotti's. They built the nicest building in town, and then filled it with a commercial center, a boutique 20-room hotel called The Inn at Red Hills (the first such thing in wine country, although there is now another and more planned), a nifty seasonal / regional restaurant named Farm to Fork, and a wine bar called Press. The entire operation is of excellent quality, and would be a top choice for wine country lodging and dining.
Along the way, Paul De Lancelotti also learned to make wine. You get only one guess as to where he picked up that trade. From the first vintage of his eponymous product in 2006, De Lancelotti has crafted some intense wines that feature traditional structure and flavors. The wines have been well-received by the wine press, and 92-point ratings have been his reward for the last couple of years in a row. This '08 De Lancelotti Family Vineyards follows in that vein, and was awarded 92 points from Stephen Tanzer's The International Wine Cellar, by writer Josh Reynolds who covers the Oregon beat.
The wine it self is a gem. The aroma is powerful, but simultaneously is nuanced. Crafted from Pommard and Wadenswil clones, the wine's flavor profile is dark red fruits with intense minerality, all delineated by some fine tannins for a bit of grip and focus. It is not crafted in a New World style, but instead harkens back to the day when there were no Dijon clones, and wine was only 13% alcohol, and you expected to cellar the bottle a bit before drinking. This wine has an upfront appeal, with a freshness and lively character that bespeaks the '08 vintage, but it belongs in the cellar for a year or three for best results.
This is old-school Oregon pinot with some structure, perfectly made to be exactly what it is, and poised to become a star wine given a bit of patience.
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