Containing a major share of Willamette Valley fruit (including lots not chosen for Rex Hill's Willamette cuvee) but also juice from the Columbia Gorge and selected high-altitude sites in southern Oregon, the A to Z 2010 Pinot Noir offers ripe but tart-edged red currant tinged with black tea and subtly-integrated fruit pit bitterness as well as spice and smoke imparted by used barriques. A snappy, mouthwateringly saline and persistently juicy finish invigorated and promises to adeptly adapt to a wide range of cuisine. I would plan to enjoy this display of some distinctly Pinot virtues over the next year or two. A to Z was founded in 2002 by William and Deborah Hatcher along with winemakers Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill. They were joined in 2006 by New Zealand-born veteran Michael Davis, the team also responsible for Rex Hill (covered separately in this report) after its 2007 acquisition. From a very small start, A to Z has grown to a case production of 120,000 focused on large lots intended to offer, as their tag line runs, "aristocratic wine at democratic prices." The A to Z crew were thrown out of their former custom crush facility for being impossible tenants who, as Tannahill puts it "practically lived there." The temptation in Oregon, "and the very model of a custom-crush tenant," he explains, "is to given somebody else your recipe and come by once and a while for a half hour to taste. We don't do that. We may be fermenting Pinot Noirs in 25 ton tanks for A to Z, but we look at it the same as our two-ton tanks (even though) expenses pile up; the margins get smaller; the people who handle the money here hate it." So much, at least, for the theory behind this popular brand, whose current Chardonnay balances nicely between juicy refreshment and some sense of richness; although I found a 2011 Pinot Gris typical of many from Oregon for failing to capture much of this grape's distinctive potential as well as in its green apple edginess (a trait shared with A-Z's apple pip-infused and slightly acrid though sweet Riesling).Tel. (503) 554-1918