From vines planted in the 1990s, the 2017 Pinot Gris features aromas of Red Delicious apples, baked pear, nutty touches and faint white spring blossoms. Light to medium-bodied, it's very crisp and refreshing in the mouth with wonderful apple flesh notes, finishing with just a touch of texture and lovely floral hints. 500 cases produced.

The 2015 Pinot Gris is a blend of Bethel Heights fruit and outsourced Rogue Valley fruit, the last time it will be done as the contract has finished. It has a relatively simple and straightforward bouquet compared to their Chardonnays, perhaps lacking the phenolic that would lend it complexity. The palate is balanced and rounded in the mouth, perhaps missing a little tension, but offering a pleasant touch of spice towards the finish.

Also recommended, but no tasting note given. "They weren't that different, at least in terms of the season" maintained Mimi Casteel and cousin Ben Casteel in amusing tandem when I asked them to differentiate 2011 and 2010, "just the latest harvest on record, and then the next latest on record! And we haven't felt that there is a qualitative difference either. But we were picking in the 12th-13th of October range, with 2010 (whereas) we didn't start picking until the 25th in 2011 and didn't finish until the 11th of November. Our goal was to get 12% natural alcohol and enough extract that the more tannic parts of our vineyard weren-t going to be just tannic." And many Pinots in this 2011 collection got into bottle at or little over 12%, with distinctively delightful results. The fruit was all destemmed and the extractive regimen lightened. After not getting the results they had hoped for in those few 2010 lots to which tartaric acid had been added (out of concern that the wines would fall flat after such high malic converted to lactic), the Casteels performed no acidulation in equally high-malic 2011. "The changing of our barrel regime to lighter toasting, but more turn-over (hence also newness) and different tonneliers has been gradual, but is something we've really worked on" explains Ben Casteel. "When Mimi and I took over in 2005 we didn't want to change anything dramatically because you have an established track record" to consider. A new property, Ingram Lane, has recently been planted to enhance the future volume here, which is still suffering a bit from the loss of Seven Springs after that venerable neighboring site became part of Evening Land. (For more about Bethel Heights consult my Issue 202 introduction.) Tel. (503) 581-2262

目前該機構(gòu)尚無對此酒款的品評記錄。

目前該機構(gòu)尚無對此酒款的品評記錄。