The J. Christopher 2011 Pinot Noir Dundee Hills Cuvee unites fruit from, most prominently, Bella Vide, Baptista Maresh, Le Pavillon, and Abby Ridge, being as such a reflection of the prime Worden Hill Road stretch. There are a thousand cases, three times what there were of the previous vintage, marking this bottling as – along with the generic Willamette cuvee – the core of the J. Christopher program. Almost stridently bright in its evocation of sour cherry, red currant and rhubarb, this is strongly shadowed by high-toned kirsch distillate, lemon oil and sealing wax. An undertone of dried blood and iron-rich tonic of some sort seems to mysteriously creep in here as well. And amazingly, there is a fine sense of textural richness running parallel to all of the energy and tart acidity on display, and a finish of impressive, penetrating persistence as well as sheer refreshment. “I tried out a lot of blends, and tasted the wines for hours and hours each time, trying to get this a bit more forward and approachable,” says Somers. “But I kept coming back to this (blend). And for me this is what Dundee was in 2011, and the whole purpose of my A.V.A. series of wines is to capture the A.V.A. in that vintage.” I suspect this will prove deliciously versatile through 2018 if not beyond.
Jay Somers – for much more about whom, and about his J. Christopher project with the Mosel’s Ernie Loosen, consult my Issue 202 account – picked from October 21 through November 2, 2011. He chaptalized certain lots – though not those from the estate’s immediate Calkins Lane neighborhood – and finished alcohols vary between 12.8% and 13.2%. As usual here, an extremely restrained regimen of punch-downs or pump-overs prevails. All of the Pinots received – and typically will receive in future – one-quarter each of new, once, twice, and thrice previously used barrels, so as to put the emphasis on terroir character, while keeping other things close to equal. A full tier of A.V.A.-designates was bottled, which – as with the vineyard-designates – did not occur until April and May of this year. “I’ve been making wine here (in the Willamette) for a long time,” says Somers, “and something I’ve learned is that we have cool vintages from time to time” – prior to 2010 he adduces 1997, his second commercial vintage – “and my feeling is that you have to go with the vintage, and not try to screw with it too much trying to make the wine what you want to make, but something it’s not.” As Somers remarked to me apropos his A.V.A. series – though this could be applied to all his work – “We’re not constructing wine, but representing something with it.” Incidentally, the first two barrels of Pinot came off of the two-year-old estate vineyard in 2012, likely destined for that vintage’s Chehalem A.V.A. blend, with the return of Appassionata (the name formerly used for a late-bottled, late released cuvee, henceforth for the estate vineyard) likely to come with 2013.
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