2008 Bergström Pinot Noir Bergström Vineyard

The Bergstrom 2008 Pinot Noir Bergstrom Vineyard displays not only some of the beef liver familiar from the 2010 but also hints of game. Allied to these are – as in the 2010 – wonderfully sweet ripe, lightly confitured cherry fruit, shadowed by its kirsch distillate Doppelganger. The tannins are very much present but fine-grained, and a pronouncedly peppery finishing pungency, like the nose, take me to the Northern Rhone, even though the sheer back end juiciness here and the savory salinity are pretty much the province of Pinot among black grapes. There’s also a fetching hint of mocha. I’d expect this to keep going strong for at least 8-10 more years. 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