Belle Pente Pinot Noir Estate Reserve 06
2006 Tanzer - 91 points - Deep red. Smoky red berries and cherry on the nose, with a subtle note of musky underbrush. Tightly wound black raspberry and bitter cherry flavors become fleshier with air and pick up a candied rose quality and dusty tannins. The cherry and herb notes repeat on the long, sappy finish. This very young wine deserves patience. - Josh Raynolds
From the winery -
It was 10 years ago that we released our first Estate Reserve Pinot Noir. This bottling has always represented the "best of the best" from our Belle Pente estate vineyard and over the years has also evolved into our purest expression of the best attributes of our Yamhill-Carlton District appellation. The wines from our neighborhood are characterized by dark fruit flavors and aromas, herbal/floral overtones, underlying minerality, an intriguing texture, and an impeccable balance of acid and tannin that makes the wines silky and sappy but also fresh and focused. Our Estate Reserve Pinot Noir provides a textbook example!
2006 has been described as a very "user friendly" vintage for Pinot Noir in Oregon. This Estate Reserve was selected for the International Pinot Noir Celebration this summer - so it can certainly be enjoyed now. But it is destined to provide the most pleasure when pulled from the cellar a half dozen (or more) years down the road. This 2006 version once again is sourced primarily from 2 sections of the vineyard: the original 1994 planting, always the most complex wine in the cellar, and the Wadensvil block planted in 1998 on a steep south-west hillside, the warmest part of the vineyard which always achieves the most even ripening. We then selected the 18 individual barrels that best showcased our appellation attributes and provide the "right stuff" for aging. The result is a tightly wound, rich, concentrated, structured young wine - perhaps our strongest Estate Reserve bottling to date. Make sure to find some room in your cellar!
2005 Vintage Tasting Notes
The Belle Pente Estate Reserve Pinot noir 05 expresses the essence of Pinot noir, hiehgtened by a sense of place. Here's the heart and soul of the Pinot noir grape, and it is spendid. The sense of place, the "terroir" of the vineyard site, interweaves with the Pinot noir fruit flavors, adding a quality unique to the Belle Pente estate vineyard.
The 2005 Belle Pente Reserve is dark - dark in color, in aroma and in flavors, and dark in the sense it imparts of earth, forest, and ripe tannins.
Blackberry and black currant intermingle with spicebox and forest floor in the nose. An initial sense of sweet black fruit gives way to a rapid-fire sense of cassis, blackberry, blue plum, forest and field, restrained spice, and stone. If you've visited the winery, you'll recognize a hint of the scent of the grassy fields and Oregon oak and fir forest that surround the vineyard.
A prolonged finish of blackberry, cassis, blue plum, fresh turned earth, and silky yet intense tannins completes the wine. While intense, the tannins are silky, firm, and ripe. Balanced for cellaring for 4-8 years, the Belle Pente 05 Reserve is highly recommended by Avalon Wine. Very limited, less than 300 cases were produced.
The Belle Pente Estate Reserve Pinot noir ranks with the wines of John Thomas's "Thomas" Pinot noir and Russ Raney's "Cuvee J" in cult status. These are the insider wines for the real Oregon wine insiders.
Brian O'Donnell quietly pursues his winemaking craft on a hillside near Carlton, Oregon with a stunning view. Brian's Estate Reserve Pinot noir shows his vineyard's terroir and his ability to grow healthy grapes and allow them to evolve into the best possible wine. The Estate Reserve is very very limited.
From the winemaker: "Since it's first release in 1997, the Estate Reserve has been our flagship wine, representing "the best of the best" of Pinot Noir from our property each year. For the past several years, the same 2 of our 8 "blocks" of Pinot Noir vines have formed the backbone of this cuvée. The first is our initial planting from 1994, which is always the most complex wine in the cellar, and seems to gain additional levels of flavors and suppler texture every year. The second is the steeply sloping southwest section that consistently achieves the most even and thorough ripening in the entire vineyard, and contributes an intriguing spiciness to the wines that we don't get elsewhere. Throughout the year, we give these sections of the vineyard special attention, and reserve the optimal harvest days for picking these grapes. We then select the individual barrels from these blocks that display the best characteristics of our site: deep, dark, black fruit flavors and aromas, solid structure with firm ripe tannins, and good acid/tannin balance. T his 2005 version displays not only the best of our vineyard, but also the best characteristics of the vintage. It is complex, structured, and balanced with an underlying sappiness. Very nice today with the right food pairing, and filled with promise for even more enjoyment in the future!"
2002 Vintage Tasting Notes
Their premiere Pinot noir. The 2002 is truly the "dark side" of Pinot Noir, with black currant, wild black cherry, and black plum flavors and aromas, accented by spice, licorice, and mocha. It is the biggest, boldest, most intense Pinot Noir in the Belle Pente line-up. The wine is drinking delightfully in 2005, and will cellar through 2010. A November Avalon Reserve Pinot noir Club Selection.
From the winery: "We hadn't planned to release this wine until next spring, but it's just too good now not to share! Debuted to rave reviews at the IPNC this summer, it has only gotten better! Our young Belle Pente Estate vineyard has once again produced the biggest, boldest, most concentrated wine in our line-up. Deep and dark, it's ripe blackberry and cassis is enhanced by ethereal aromas of dried herbs and white pepper. More forthcoming than earlier versions, it still deserves (and will reward) several years of cellaring. 349 cases produced."
