The Maysara 2007 Pinot Noir Mitra represents a cuvee that is apparently always assembled from four new barrels reflective of different vine selections and parts of the Momtazi vineyard. I believe I can say with confidence – while never having tasted this before – that 100% new wood was too much for the 2007 vintage; and that assuming I was shown the current vintage, it ought not to have been released so late. Decadent scents of autumn foliage, smoky black tea, and caramelized wood resin are more prominent than the wine’s relatively slight suggestions of dark berries. The palate feel is rather brittle, and while salinity serves for some sense of saliva-inducing savor to the finish, this is fighting a dry spot of tannin and the berry fruit has disappeared. Drink this soon. In 1998, on a huge, hilly, windswept and abandoned wheat farm south of McMinnville, Mo Momtazi – an engineer who had fled his native Iran for the U.S. in the early ‘80s – began planting and biodynamically farming Pinot Noir. His fruit – a portion of it from the beginning estate-bottled – quickly attracted a certain reputation for incipiently complex flavor intensity, even if here was a place – at least, in the vineyard’s upper elevations – where Pinot would struggle to ripen. Fortunately, over large parts of Momtazi Vineyard’s surface the heat-retention of basalt rock and veins of silica moderates the characteristically very cool evening air temperatures. I had already sensed from tasting several Momtazi wines a other addresses that this is fruit with a special appeal for the most serious not to say fanatical of vintners, and the number of people purchasing these grapes is diminishing by intention because, as Momtazi put it, “If I am going to go broke growing Pinot, I might as well stay home and be broke.” Momtazi’s daughter Tahmiene took over the cellar in 2007. Her two sisters are also involved with the family winery. Pinot is always destemmed; fermentative extraction is by means of pigeage, pump-over and pulsed-air, but regardless of method, sparing; and the young wines go to barrel at dryness without any settling. Another distinctive aspect of Maysara elevage is that some of these young Pinots I tasted had been racked twice, presumably on account of the reduction that can be courted by going to barrel “dirty.” I must say I came away from my first tasting with the Momtazis not at all clear as to the principles that determine and are taken to justify so many different estate Pinots. Moreover – as even a superficial review of my ratings makes clear – I had difficulty making sense of this estate’s pricing hierarchy in terms of wine quality, since ostensibly lesser cuvees can be as complex and better balanced than some that are expensive.Tel. (503) 843-1234

It is rare to find a high-end domestic Pinot Noir so restrained, so elegant. Lightly layered with tangy raspberry, mineral and herb, this wine proves that supple, graceful, complex, delicious Pinots can be made in Oregon. So often they are sacrificed on the altar of overripeness and oak. Here are authentic flavors of grape and soil, biodynamically farmed and lovingly crafted into a complete and fascinating wine that with attention, gives the drinker more.——P.G.(11/15/2008)—— 92