2010 Bergström Pinot Noir De Lancellotti Vineyard

Slightly darker than some of its stablemates. Broad and meaty, well integrated nose with a little smokiness. Muscular and serious – no come-hither sweetness here. Very firm finish. Fine and quite tight. Pure pleasure, but not quite yet. (JR)

From a site practically adjacent to the Bergstrom winery – and about which, including its Bergstrom connections, you can read in my separate coverage in this report of the eponymous estate – the Bergstroms’ 2010 Pinot Noir de Lancellotti Vineyard displays ripe, juicy blackberry mingled with resin, cinnamon, dark chocolate, vanilla, and clove, and underlain by beet root and a subtly present sense of forest floor. A vivid, tart berry edge and salted meat suggestions serve for invigoration and saliva inducement in a long finish. The alliance of sweet richness with levity and bright ping of acidity reflects the unusual proclivity of this site, where Bergstrom says “you can let the fruit hang as long as you want, and still come up with Burgundian pH numbers.” The flip side of that, he notes, is that the tannins can be aggressive if vines and young wine are not carefully monitored under that aspect; but in the present instance I find them fine-grained and well-integrated. Incidentally, apropos the youthfulness of so many of the vines in this site (roughly half were planted only in 2006), Bergstrom maintains that quality doesn’t have to suffer in the vine’s “adolescence” if the crop is managed tightly, and I suppose this wine makes that point pretty decisively! Josh Bergstrom was much influenced by the time he spent studying oenology in Beaune and working in Burgundy immediately before in 1999 taking over winemaking duties at his family’s then nearly new estate. Today, it comprises 85 acres of vines in five disparate locations, to each of which a single-vineyard Pinot Noir bottling is dedicated. Rounding out the line-up are Pinots from Shea and Temperance Hill vineyards; a blend; and some very serious Chardonnay that makes up 10% of total production. Bergstrom’s blocks of Temperance Hill were planted to their high-density specifications with vines they bought, and a promise of long-term control “all on a handshake,” notes Bergstrom, adding “that’s Oregon. Forty to fifty percent of the vines in all my vineyards are Pommard (selection),” he explains – echoing a sentiment expressed by a number of top Willamette growers and on which I’ll comment further in next year’s report – “because I think that’s the skeletal structure of Oregon Pinot Noir. The Dijon clones, for as lovely and fleshy and fruity as they are, can sometimes be too much of a good thing.” There is considerable clonal diversity in his vineyards, but few blocks are mixed, whereas Bergstrom says “if I had it to do it all over again, I’d take 30 different clones in a jumble and just throw it out there.” Pioneers in Willamette biodynamic viticulture – virtually since their estate’s inception – the Bergstroms typically crop at little more than two tons per acre, though in 2010, across-the-board, they didn’t even manage quite one ton. Josh Bergstrom reported losing “only 30%” of his total Pinot crop to birds, whereas he lost 70% of his Chardonnay to them, and a total harvest that usually lasts six weeks took only three. Around half of the cellar was lightly chaptalized, a rate that crept-up in 2011. Bergstrom favors a long cold soak and wherever he judges it feasible a significant amount of both whole clusters, and spontaneous fermentation (de rigueur for fruit from those sites he farms biodynamically). Acidification is eschewed (and even in 2009, Bergstrom insists you simply had to pick earlier to preserve acidity). “I know that there’s going to be balance in the whole blend,” he claims, “given that we have so many (microclimatically) divergent blocks within each vineyard.” There’s one conical wooden upright, but otherwise fermentation takes place in jacketed stainless steel tanks. In keeping with an increasingly popular sentiment (hardly confined to the Willamette Valley) Bergstrom reports that while “we used to do upwards of one pigeage every two hours all day long and use 100% new oak, we’ve really backed-off in recent years to get a little less brash, in-your-face style of Pinot Noir and instead more elegance, doing maybe one pigeage a day and in some vintages like 2010 or 2011 doing more remontage. My style in Pinot has been increasingly influenced by my love of Chardonnay,” he adds, and he just came back from doing brief stages with Roulot and Morey. The young Pinots are pressed at dryness and settled for several days before going to barrel; are racked into tank after 11 months, and then sit there until February bottling. Incidentally, I tasted through Bergstrom’s 2011s in barrel – wines he says have shocked him with how expressive and high quality they are turning out to be – and I did indeed find them exciting. Tel. (503) 554-0463

Vivid ruby. Intensely perfumed nose offers black raspberry, cherry compote and candied licorice. Vanilla and cola nuances add an exotic quality to sappy red and dark berry flavors, with tangy acidity providing lift. Closes on a bright, spicy note, with lingering sweetness and excellent tenacity.