The 3 Degrees 2014 Pinot Noir has a delightful crisp red cherry and wild strawberry bouquet that offers fine delineation. The palate is not the most complex on the block ,but it is still well balanced with taut tannin, black plum and cranberry towards the supple finish. Enjoy over the next 3-5 years.

The 2013 Pinot Noir is fermented in three-ton water tanks, since all the fermenters are full of fruit for Maysara. So there is no cold soak or heat. It comes from the younger vines in the vineyard. It has a light but clean, simple, yet nicely defined brambly red berry nose. The palate is medium-bodied with light tannin, simple and slightly tertiary red berry fruit, leading to an easy-drinking, glug-it-in-front-of-the-TV finish that at this price, I have no complaints about.

Also recommended, but no tasting note given. This year, I visited the Momtazi family's vineyard (about which I wrote in my issue 202 coverage) during the completion of a facility that is as large as any aircraft-hanger I've ever seen, and in which the crush facility and future barrel cellar are practically swallowed-up. Constructed largely from massive trees that grew on the property, and lined inside with staves from hundreds if not a thousand or more old barrels that they have been saving-up, this flabbergasting building reflects Mo Momtazi's background in engineering and construction as well as the grandiosity and audacity of his vision. And if one considers the regard in which the fruit grown by this former Iranian refugee is held, his ambitions for Pinot Noir on this massive, windswept cluster of hills south of McMinnville do not seem to have been at all inflated. Half of the 500 acres at this site have been planted - some just recently. "We planted that last section in 2009," he relates, "but we had so much snow that the whole hillside slid and we lost all of the vines and had to start over. Nowadays everybody wants the Pinot from these steep slopes. I might plant just a few more acres in Chardonnay, because Tahmiene" - his daughter who has in recent years run the cellar - "really likes to have Chardonnay. But other than that, we're maxed-out." Due to some confusion about my visit and to the contemporaneous construction of this estate-s new facilities, I was regrettably unable on this occasion to taste most of the Maysara Pinot Noirs subsequent to those vintages on which I reported in issue 2002, and the Momtazis and I will have some serious catching-up to do next year. Tel. (503) 843-1234