Also recommended, but no tasting note given. This year, I visited the Momtazi family's vineyard (about which I wrote in my issue 202 coverage) during the completion of a facility that is as large as any aircraft-hanger I've ever seen, and in which the crush facility and future barrel cellar are practically swallowed-up. Constructed largely from massive trees that grew on the property, and lined inside with staves from hundreds if not a thousand or more old barrels that they have been saving-up, this flabbergasting building reflects Mo Momtazi's background in engineering and construction as well as the grandiosity and audacity of his vision. And if one considers the regard in which the fruit grown by this former Iranian refugee is held, his ambitions for Pinot Noir on this massive, windswept cluster of hills south of McMinnville do not seem to have been at all inflated. Half of the 500 acres at this site have been planted - some just recently. "We planted that last section in 2009," he relates, "but we had so much snow that the whole hillside slid and we lost all of the vines and had to start over. Nowadays everybody wants the Pinot from these steep slopes. I might plant just a few more acres in Chardonnay, because Tahmiene" - his daughter who has in recent years run the cellar - "really likes to have Chardonnay. But other than that, we're maxed-out." Due to some confusion about my visit and to the contemporaneous construction of this estate-s new facilities, I was regrettably unable on this occasion to taste most of the Maysara Pinot Noirs subsequent to those vintages on which I reported in issue 2002, and the Momtazis and I will have some serious catching-up to do next year. Tel. (503) 843-1234