The Boedecker 2005 Pinot Noir Stewart is scented with green tea, moss, and still-bright intimations of red fruits. A tart suggestion on entry of rhubarb and red raspberry gives way to evocations of their distilled essences and a finishing dominance of seedy bite and full of forest floor, though there is still some primary juiciness to the finish. This intriguingly delicious wine strikes me as being best drunk over the next year or two. "From Stewart," says the wine's namesake, "I look for more the traditional aging curve, where you get earthy notes as the fruit drops back, whereas I think the Athena (cuvee) holds onto its core fruit longer and then goes more toward the spicy end of the spectrum." The affable and articulate husband-wife team of Stewart Boedecker and Athena Pappas moved from hi-tech to winemaking; pursued the latter for five years at the Carlton Wine Studio; then moved in 2008 to their own facility in Portland. The Boedecker regimen for consistently excellent Pinot involves - in addition to close and creative collaboration with just a few long-term suppliers - only a few days cold soak; spontaneous ferment; sparing pigeage and otherwise highly cautious extraction; but up to a week's post fermentative cap contact; and regular stirring of the lees in barrel, where all of the top wines remain for 19 months. Incidentally, there is a Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir from this cellar and I can't explain why the proprietors didn't choose to show it to me even though, for example, they showed me rose. A fascination from this cellar - to call it a curiosity would suggest too little respect - is that each partner arrives at his or her own barrel selection which is in turn bottled under his or her name, the latter Athena cuvee - which tends to originate more in sedimentary rather than eroded basaltic soils - being released later based in an impression that it remains both tighter and in a phase of primary fruitiness for longer. (White wines from this cellar are bottled under the "Pappas Wine Co." label, but following an existing Wine Advocate convention - and so as to address wines of common authorship in one place - they are reviewed under the "Boedecker Cellars" heading.) Tel. (503) 866-0095

Lithe, with a crisp edge to the lovely plum and currant fruit, shaded with savory, slightly meaty notes as the finish remains vivid. Best from 2009 through 2015. 325 cases made. -HS