Dominated by fruit from Zena Crown in the Eola-Amity Hills, the Aberrant Cellars 2010 Pinot Noir Carpe Noctum displays the combination of textural tenderness, brightness, levity, mouthwatering salinity, animal savor, and generally fascinatingly brooding features of Pinot that appear to be Eric Eide’s forte. Tartly-edged dark berries and smoky black tea mingle on the nose and satiny palate, with the aforementioned animal and mineral dimensions lending intrigue and salivary stimulation to a long finish. I’d plan on giving this a few years in bottle and anticipating at least 6-8 of rude good health, while bearing in mind that one can only speculate, absent a track record, about the longevity of Aberrant Cellars wines. Montana-born Eric Eide trained and worked for a few years at several Oregon wineries before founding Aberrant Cellars. Renting cellar space and establishing, beginning with vintage 2010, a set of long-term leases that will permit him to call shots on the vineyard management of specific parcels, he is a full-time winemaker making solely his own wines, even though for now production is only in the thousand case range. He is especially fond of the at one time (both in the U.S. and its Swiss homeland) rather neglected Wadenswil clone. “The problem,” he opines, “is that there’s not much of it,” but the search for traditional as well as older vine material has played a major role in this recent choices of sources. Inspired by some of Burgundy’s self-styled traditionalists, Eide likes utilizing whole clusters with stems, 10-15% in the wines I recently tasted, but that will rise significantly in 2011, he notes, encouraged by long hang time and consequent stem lignification. Eide believes in at most 4-6 days cold soak – “too much dumbs down the wine,” he asserts – so he’s willing to yeast his musts (as he did in 2009) if nature doesn’t act soon enough (as she did in 2010 and 2011). “Enzymes really dumb-down a wine,” he insists, and he would never add any. Extraction is gentle – generally incorporating not more than one punch-down per day – but Eide believes in up to a week’s post-fermentative maceration. Each vintage’s Carpe Noctum bottling will represent a selection of barrels Eide thinks especially noteworthy and, as the cuvees name suggests, not timid about revealing Pinot’s sinister side; while the Confero cuvee will represent a wider range of sources (though these have changed completely from those tapped for vintage 2009 to those going forward). “My wines need 15 months in bottle to open,” he claims “which from a business standpoint isn’t good, but from a winemaking standpoint is what I wanted.” This much is certain: he’s crafting with great forethought and minimal compromise Willamette Pinots that blow past a lot of their far better-known and higher-priced competition. If he can keep the commercial side of things afloat, then you’ll be reading much more about Aberrant Cellars in the future.Tel. (503) 686-1129

Tightly wound, with spicy, licorice-accented blackberry flavors playing against fine, firm tannins. The finish lingers easily. Best from 2012 through 2017. 270 cases made.??–HS??Region: Oregon / Willamette Valley Select to Add

The 2009 Pinot Noir Carpe Noctem is a selection of the top 11 barrels of 38 in the cellar. It offers a similar aromatic and flavor profile but with greater grip and structure. It is likely to benefit from 1-2 years of additional cellaring and will drink nicely through 2019. Tel. (503) 686-1129; www.aberrantcellars.com