2009 Evening Land Pinot Noir Seven Springs Vineyard Summum

The gorgeous nose of Evening Land’s 2009 Pinot Noir Seven Springs Vineyard Summum projects not just mint-, and cardamom-tinged, lightly-cooked pomegranate and red raspberry, but is also – did they blend Chardonnay into this?! – garlanded with iris and gentian. The complex dynamic offered on the palate involves the counterpoint of soothing, metaphorically cooling herbal essences with tart-edged, invigoratingly seedy red fruits; satiny texture with vivacious brightness; and octave leaps between high-toned floral perfume and a stony, woodsy ground. This could keep you and your chosen cuisine glorious company for hours ... or over at least another 6-8 years in bottle. In early 2007, the colorful cast of wine and food celebrity investors whose collective Pinot Noir and Chardonnay winemaking project is known as Evening Land acquired a lease that united, under a single management, the 80-acre Seven Springs Vineyard in the Eola Hills, renowned as a source of fruit for Bethel Heights, Cristom, and St. Innocent, none of whom were by the terms able to retain fruit after vintage 2008. (Shortly before, Evening Land had acquired Occidental Vineyard in the eponymous hamlet near the Sonoma Coast. A quartet of vineyards in the Santa Rita Hills was subsequently added.) From this project’s inception, Burgundy’s Dominique Lafon has advised an Oregon team under the direction of Isabelle Meunier (who among other experience worked at Le Clos Jordanne in Ontario before accepting the Evening Land assignment), with Ryan Hannaford as vineyard manager. The Seven Springs Vineyard has been put on a biodynamic regimen, and the first crop from an expansion known as East Ridge will come on line from the 2011 vintage. A new and sophisticated shaking “Rotovib” de-stemmer helps further control for quality the product of rigorous sorting, and allows for a high percentage of whole berries. Pinot vinification here takes place in conical concrete or wooden tanks, spontaneously, and normally commencing within a week. Pump-overs usually give way to punch-downs, and eventually Meunier shifts to “a new technique that involves the option to irrigate or punch down at the same time because you carry a hose with you as you feel with your feet the hot or cold spots, and the eventual result is finer tannins.” Post-fermentative maceration is favored, but of course carefully monitored. Meunier believes her gentle but relatively quick pneumatic press cycle largely mimics but is superior to a basket press, and the young wine is settled long enough to leave her confident that it will never during its 18 month stay in barrel require racking. Fermentation and aging of Chardonnay is overwhelmingly in the custom Vosges and Alliers barriques that Tonnelier Damy has been rendering for some years now exclusively for the Lafon domaines; while Pinot sojourns in a wide range of barrels – as with the estate’s white, typically only 25-30% of them new. Malo-lactic fermentation does not take place until Spring, following Burgundian habits (whether of bacteria, wine, or vintner ;-). Chardonnays labeled “Summum” represent a separately-harvested portion of the vineyard, often in comparable volume to the corresponding La Source cuvee; while La Source Pinots come from selected parcels and Summum Pinots represent occasional special selections of outstanding material, about which Meunier is at pains to forestall a likely misinterpretation: “In outstanding vintages,” she explains, “it’s hard to select-out anything that would obviously stand above and beyond in quality, so strangely enough Summum (Pinot) tends to happen in more challenging years – we made one in 2007 and in 2009 – when there is a natural gap in quality and you’re able to select something limited that really stands out.” Meunier expresses a “love” for the long, cool 2010 vintage, and given her handsome results, it’s no wonder (though she insists that “by the time it was over everybody was overjoyed with their 2010 results ... except for the tiny yields”). Tel. (805) 736-9656