2011 Evening Land Pinot Noir Seven Springs Vineyard

The 2,700 cases of Evening Land’s flagship 2011 Pinot Noir Seven Springs Vineyard – comprised of around half Pommard and half Dijon clones – is striking for its immediate display of carnal and mineral dimensions: smoked and roasted red meats, saline and alkaline sea breeze emerge already in the nose, accompanied, to be sure, by ripe dark berries. Tart-edged elderberry and blackberry inform a polished and vivaciously bright palate and correspondingly exuberant, sustained finish. There isn’t an ounce of fat or of superficial sweetness here, and an undertone of forest floor and wet stone sets a somewhat somber contrast with the refreshing juiciness of fruit acidity; but the upshot of this dark-light paradox is both intrigue and sensual appeal. Look for high performance through at least 2022. This year represented my first opportunity to visit the winemaking facilities of Evening Land – improvised but spacious and with no expense spared on wooden fermenters and top-grade barriques – in a warehouse complex near downtown Salem. It was also my first opportunity to visit with manager Ryan Hannaford and winemaker Isabelle Meunier their expanding Seven Springs Vineyard – impeccably tended and indicative of considerable experimentation. Plans currently call for a dedicated winery to be built at the Seven Springs site only in 3-4 years. Meanwhile, the additional acreage that is coming on-line is enabling Evening Land to move away from purchased fruit at the lower-end of their portfolio and emphasize estate fruit – entirely in the case of Chardonnay. The investors and wine celebrities behind this venture (for more about which, consult my introduction in Issue 202) may not exactly have endeared themselves to the local winemaking community – especially those cut off from Seven Springs fruit – but they are not only clearly here to stay, they are also clearly making investments and taking chances that will be among those developments to take Willamette Valley wines to new qualitative heights. Let it not go unmentioned, for instance, that from the inception of this project, tagging and selecting of vines has been taking place to over the years laboriously create Seven Springs’ own massale selections, the sort of crucial work that sadly not nearly one in a hundred wine estates worldwide nowadays undertakes. Sensibly as it seems to me – but surprisingly rare among the vintners whom I visited for this report – Meunier and her collaborateur, Dominique Lafon, elected to bottle their top 2011s later than they had previous vintages (specifically, in April) so as to retain a normal length of elevage following such a late harvest. “Primary fermentations went through pretty quick once the fruit got into the warmer winery environment, but malo was super-late,” reports Meunier, chuckling. “In this cellar we normally do malos over the spring, but in 2011 – with such low pH and high malate – we didn’t finish malo until July, very style Bourguignon. I used fewer punch-downs and more pump-overs,” she continues, “because I felt that punching-down was going to squeeze the grape too hard. You didn’t want to touch the seeds too much because they weren’t completely ripe.” Pressing, too, was therefore even more gentle and cautious than usual. Musts came in at around 12% natural alcohol, and were chaptalized only around a half to three-quarters of a degree, marginally more than in 2010. There was selective acidulation to compensate for the high levels of malic acid typical in 2011 (i.e. for their eventual transformation to lactic acid), yet, amazingly, finished pHs here are not only significantly higher than I encountered elsewhere, they are only very slightly variant between 2011 and 2012, a feature which Meunier and her team credit at least in part to biodynamic vineyard practices, though more precisely what might be causally involved I was unable to fathom. All of the 2011 fruit was destemmed; and even in years when the condition of the stems is deemed optimum, they are used only very selectively other than in a dedicated vendange entier bottling, “Red Queen,” which was not essayed in 2011. Tel. (805) 736-9656

Very bright red. Quite transparent-looking. Interesting nose with some really intriguing mushroom notes along with much riper fruit flavours than you might expect given the (relatively low) alcohol level. This is a very sprightly wine with real energy. Long and satisfying. Dry but energetic finish. Lots of sap here. Attractive chew on the end. (JR)