Medium ruby, the 2019 Pinot Noir McCrone Vineyard is scented of cranberries, blackberries, forest floor and dark spices. The medium-bodied palate is grainy and fresh with crunchy, earth-laced fruits and a spicy finish.

The 2014 Pinot Noir McCrone Vineyard, from vines planted in 1991 on marine soils at around 2,000 vines per acre, has a lifted bouquet with Morello cherry, marmalade and a light ferrous scent underneath. The palate is medium-bodied with chewy tannin, quite firm in the mouth with sappy red berry fruit with a pleasant saline tang on the finish. It just feels a little static at the moment, but it will hopefully gain more tension and energy with bottle age.

Ken Wright has worked the McCrone Vineyard since 1995. The 2012 Pinot Noir McCrone Vineyard has a well-defined bouquet with red cherry, cranberry and walnut scents that gain vigor with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with tart cherry fruit mixed with allspice and saline notes. This is a little more high-toned than Ken Wright's other 2012s, but with a little more length on the finish.

From a high-density Yamhill-Carlton planting of Dijon clones 777 and 115 - which play prominent roles in many of Wright's vineyards - his 2010 Pinot Noir McCrone displays a slightly reduced, pungent nose featuring resin, sage, horehound, dried cherry, smoked meat, and white pepper. Tannic to the point of slight drying-up of primary fruit juiciness, this at the same time wears its apparently abundant acidity in a detached finishing tartness, which is allied to some underlying bitterness. I had only a couple of hours to sit with this wine and simply could not manage time to re-taste any of the current Wright collection, so it may well be that with a bit more air this would display greater harmony and less tightness. Barring the opportunity to follow another bottle, I wouldn't try to speculate on its cellar potential. Louisville native Ken Wright has long since become one of the iconic and most influential figures of the Oregon wine scene, a go-to for countless winery start-ups as well as valuable projects to benefit the Willamette wine community. Wright's career evolved from one of negociant-winemaker (founder of Panther Creek) and farmer of other people's vines to that of vineyard owner. "It was twelve years before I bought my first vineyard," he notes, "because before that I was in the exploratory phase of trying to find the best sites in the valley." Today, in addition to the three vineyards he owns, Wright holds 15- to 30-year leases on five others, and 80% of the vines that supply him are farmed by his own extensive (and in places site-specific) team. Wright is passionately vocal on myriad aspects of Pinot production, but one he emphasized especially in our recent session was "nutrition-based farming," which he characterizes as "a whole nother level beyond biodynamics" focused on "the uptake of minerals," which he believes is especially critical in the Willamette to encouraging ideal ripeness. It's thus the soil's microbial life he nurtures, he says, in order to get at the vine, with annual block-by-block soil and tissue analyses employed to establish what's needed and what's been accomplished. Wright makes clear that he sees ripeness as reflecting optimal harnessing of the sun's energy in the form of sugar, but indicates that he considers the use of must concentrators a more than acceptable alternative to chaptalization if grapes don't reach an optimal level of sugar. I was left with an uneasy impression from most of Wright's recent line-up of ripeness to be sure, but variously allied to phenolic stridency; firm, at times rustic tannin; or opacity of flavors. Wright appears from my limited research and my conversations with him to be the source of a considerable consensus that, in his words "as a result of doing single vineyard bottlings for so long, a pattern has emerged that basalt sites " Dundee Hills, Eola-Amity Hills - generally tend to be more fruit-focused - (whether) red, blue, or black - and marine sediments (exhibit) more spicy and floral. And since these marine soils, mostly sandstone, are so dry, that triggers a hormonal response in the vine much earlier in the year to begin the process of ripening; where with (eroded basalt) volcanic soils there's more clay, more water-holding capacity, and so the vine remains vegetative longer. And for whatever reason - I don't quite understand that - we have higher acidity in the volcanics.- I don't share that consensus - I can't say that my admittedly limited experience even entitles me to judge it - but I wanted readers to be aware of it. Tel. (503) 852-7070

The 2009 Pinot Noir McCrone Vineyard delivers a perfume of earthy minerals, spicy red fruits, and incense in a straightforward style. Savory and medium-bodied in the glass, this slightly one-dimensional offering is meant for drinking over the next 6-7 years. Ken Wright Cellars’ 2009 Pinot Noirs range from excellent to outstanding in quality but generally lack the structure, density, and richness of the great 2008 vintage. These are pretty, elegant wines to drink while the 2008s continue to fill out in the cellar.Tel. (503) 852-7070; www.kenwrightcellars.com