Willakenzie Estate "Pierre Léon" Pinot Noir 2013

Description

Willakenzie Estate “Pierre Léon” Pinot Noir 2013 has a classic Oregon Pinot Noir nose – ripe fruits like cherry, crunchy raspberries, redcurrant and blueberries with savoury mushroom & “forest-floor” notes. Flavours are just as complex and juicy fruits continue to dominate though the more savoury notes are also there. This wine is lovely and light, the finish long and dry with cranberry and blueberry flavours dominating. There is great balance to this wine – alcohol in Oregon Pinot Noirs can be high but here it is restrained at 13%; acidity is high making the wine very refreshing despite its age and tannins are fine and well integrated. Willakenzie Estate “Pierre Léon” Pinot Noir 2013 is a beautiful medium-bodied wine with a really silky smooth texture which makes it a very elegant Pinot Noir.

Californian Pinot Noirs have a good reputation and there are some fine examples but I like to look a little further north in the USA – to Oregon and the Willamette Valley American Viticultural Area* (“AVA”) which produces around 88% of Oregon’s Pinot Noir. It is a true cool climate area, cooler and wetter than California but with longer hours of sunlight and a big difference between day and night temperatures which leads to fresher wines with more pronounced fruit. The grapes in Willakenzie Estate “Pierre Léon” Pinot Noir 2013 are from a single vineyard named Pierre Léon after the father of the winery’s Burgundian founder, Bernard Lacroute.  A Burgundian ethos is followed in that Willakenzie aims to “craft wines which capture the distinctive qualities of the soil, slope and plant from which they come.” And they have succeeded with a growing reputation for terroir-driven wines with finesse and balance just like this wine.

* N.B. AVAs indicate the origin of a wine; there are however no regulations that need to be followed to use the classification as is the case in France for example.