The 2014 Pinot Blanc Freedom Hill Vineyard, 20% aged in old puncheons, has an attractive bouquet with scents of hazelnut and pralines, well defined and turning quite floral with time. The palate does not quite match the aromatics but it is still well balanced with an attractive texture, just a touch of viscosity on the entry and crisp grapefruit, lime and ginger notes towards the finish. Enjoy this good value Pinot Blanc over the next 4-6 years.

The 2013 Pinot Blanc Freedom Hill Vineyard is made in 75% stainless steel where it is left on the lees for 7 or 8 months and puncheons. It has a light bouquet with hints of apple blossom and just a touch of star anis in the background that becomes more noticeable with aeration. The palate is well balanced with a fine line of acidity, good depth and a light lemongrass note toward the finish. Fine.

Also recommended, but no tasting note given. Founder-winemaker Mark Vlossak – for much more about whom, and about St. Innocent, consult my issue 202 report – compares 2011 with the low-alcohol, high-acid Pinots he bottled in 1999, but not by way of dwelling on similarities; on the contrary. “I basically told people not to drink them,” he says of his 1999s, “and I’m still not drinking them. Every time I open ‘em I just think they’re way too young. Some may just be starting to come ‘round. But 2011 is completely different. Back then a lot of the vineyard was dying of phylloxera. We still had wide spacing. Now we have younger vines but with much denser spacing and more leaves to do the job.” Vlossak notes that “the highest alcohol I got in 2011was 13%, and I didn’t chaptalize anything that came in over 12.5%. The largest sugar buy I had ever made until now was 50 pounds, which means that basically I’d never really chaptalized anything. And I bought around 1,700 pounds of sugar in 2011!” Fermentative extraction and pressing were both gentler than usual – and “usual’ here, Vlossak has repeatedly sought to assure me, signifies an already light touch. I found two Vlossak’s whites tasted ahead of his latest Pinot Noirs surprisingly glassy in texture and tart, especially considering the noticeable degree of alcoholic ripeness achieved in the 2012 Pinot Blanc. Tel. (503) 932 2129

The 2010 Pinot Blanc Freedom Hill Vineyard saw 67% of the wine raised in stainless steel and 33% in oak puncheons, the latter to induce a rounder texture. Mineral, baking spice, melon, and white peach aromas compose the wine’s inviting bouquet. Creamy textured, vibrant, and impeccably balanced, this lengthy effort will provide enjoyment for several more years. All of these whites wines are outstanding values. As usual, owner/winemaker Mark Vlossak has turned out a first-class collection of new releases.Tel. (503) 378-1526; www.stinnocentwine.com

Fermented in a mixture of tank and older 300-liter barrels, the St. Innocent 2010 Pinot Blanc Freedom Hill Vineyard offers cepage-typical notes of apple, corn shoot, and hazelnut, the bitter side of these elements serving for invigoration in a juicy, buoyant, discreetly tart finish that nonetheless preserves a subtle sense of positive creaminess. I suspect this will be best enjoyed over the next couple of years, though I am the last taster to ignore the aging potential of the best Pinot Blancs and I have not yet tasted an older example of St. Innocent’s. Founder-winemaker Mark Vlossak – whose St. Innocent winery will soon celebrate its first quarter century – constructed a new facility on the grounds of Zenith vineyard in 2006 after he and vineyard proprietors Kari and Tim Ramey arranged a quid pro quo whereby St. Innocent owns shares in Zenith – from whose previous owner they had bought fruit for O’Connor Vineyard bottlings – who now supply a significant share of St. Innocent’s fruit; whilst Vlossak makes the Rameys’ Zenith wines. (My account of recent Zenith releases appears in the separate on-line report in this issue.) These developments took place against the background of St. Innocent losing access to the fruit of Seven Springs Vineyard (now under contract to Evening Land, as discussed in my coverage in this report of that two-state, multi-regional project), after having been that vineyard’s largest customer and their reputations having been closely linked since St. Innocent’s inception. Vlossak says he favors relatively large fermentation tanks whose mass encourages fermentation temperatures “above 80 degrees F. for five to seven days. I just think that gives a different, richer feel in the mouth that’s sort of the signature for what I do. My aim is to build that kind of fine structure, not to achieve bigness or super-ripeness.” He de-stems but nowadays is able to (and does) work with up to half whole berries. “I do inoculate” for fermentation, explains Vlossak, “but only a tiny pile of yeasts in one corner, and I almost never add SO2 (at that stage), so the idea is that I want the indigenous things to grow, and whoever wins (the race to efficacy) wins. I don’t punch-down a lot,” he continues, “and I never pump-over. I’m looking for a certain texture and I don’t worry about whether the wine has gone completely dry before putting into tank to settle for three or four days” and thence to barrels, of which usually 30-40% are new. Pressing is very gentle, cautious, and quantitatively inefficient. The 2010s are a very bright, generally tart bunch, all but one of which weight in at below 13% alcohol. Time, alas, always being limited, Vlossak only had me taste the 2009 Pinots from the couple of sites that were too cool to subject to single-vineyard bottlings in 2010, and the combination of that very ripe vintage with those sites and Vlossak’s approach was especially impressive, making me wish I’d had a chance to taste more of St Innocent’s 2009s. Tel. (503) 932 2129