The Erath 2011 Pinot Noir Leland displays saliva-stimulating salinity and savor akin to toasted shrimp shells that immediately caught my attention and repeatedly clinched the desire to take the next sip. Juicy cherry is tinged with sarsaparilla, macaroon and vanilla (around 45% of the barrels for this were new), but cherry pit and iodine help offset the wine’s confectionary aspects, and this finishes with mouthwatering persistence. I suspect this will be worth following through at least 2018.
Veteran vintner Gary Horner showed me a significant share of 2011 vintage releases from Erath, though I did not have time to taste by any means all (and we focused exclusively on Pinots). He opined that higher-elevation sites – even though cooler – seemed to him favored in 2011, presumably on account of the important role played by wind in concentrating flavors everywhere in the Willamette in October of that year. And wind was certainly critical in helping counteract what Horner claims were two of the toughest challenges of this vintage: rot, especially that hidden – along with pink berries – inside clusters; and clusters themselves so heavy that as he quipped “even at one to a shoot, your vines were sometime over-cropped!” Virtually all of the 2011 Pinots here are around 12.5% in finished alcohol, and that’s even after selective chaptalization. An elevage of 11-12 months in 35-45% new barrels is pretty much the routine for Erath Pinot. (For more about this historic winery; its vineyards; and Horner’s approach, consult my issue 202 introduction.)
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