Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Eason Vineyard 07

Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Eason Vineyard 07 is made from a vineyard that Patty knows intimately - she's made wine from the site since 1994.

From the winery:

This vineyard is perhaps our favorite site. Located toward the bottom of Breyman Orchard Rd in the Dundee Hills this site is now 24 years old. We have been working with this vineyard since 1994 and the care we have taken managing it over those years continues to come out more and more as the vines move into full maturity.

If there is one vineyard is the cellar we feel we have dialed in terms of the management of the site, the ripening curve of the fruit, the type of fermentations to expect, the barrel regimen and the blending program it would be this one. For more than half of her 20+ years in winemaking Patty has worked with the fruit from Eason Vineyard. That sort of experience and relationship is incredibly important in the making of great Pinot Noir.

Eason tends to be a bell-weather vineyard for each particular vintage. In cooler years such as 2001 and 2007 we end up with a red fruited wine that shows off the brightness of the Dundee Hills with red spices and a touch of iron to it. In warmer vintages like 2003 and 2006 the vineyard moves toward darker blackberry flavors and has a sappy richness to the mid-palate.

The 2007 Eason is bright, red fruited, spicy and extremely feminine. That should not imply lightness. While the wine is lighter in color than our other offerings from 2007 there is a lovely sense of weight to mid-palate of this wine. This is discreet and nuanced stuff that, while good now, will reward cellaring.

Recent tastings of our 2001 Eason have shown a wine that is highly aromatic, much denser than it was 5 years ago and still awash in sweet red primary fruit. The 2007 is quite akin to that bottling and we expect no less from this wine in the long term. 420 cases bottled.

Previous Vintage tasting notes

2006 Vintage Tasting Notes

The 2006 Eason definitely carries the rich signature of the vintage with polished, supple black fruit notes that are highlighted by tinges of more typical red Dundee Hill Pinot flavors.

2005 Vintage Tasting Notes

Bright, sweet red fruit offset by hints of game, earthy/irony nuances and a bit more of a substantial tannin profile. The wine is typical Dundee Hills, with a shift towards rich, dark, earthy qualities consistent with the height of the vineyard. -Jim Very limited, under 200 cases made.

This vineyard is perhaps our favorite site. Located toward the bottom of Breyman Orchard Rd in the Dundee Hills this site is now 22 years old. The same phenomenon called necrosis that in 2004 limited our harvest to less than 1 ton/acre affected this site again in 2005 and we only harvested 1.1 tons/acre leaving us with just 12 barrels of wine.

We have been working with this vineyard since 1994 and the last two vintages have been painful for us to have such small quantities from this interesting little vineyard. If there is one vineyard is the cellar we feel we have dialed in terms of the management of the site, the ripening curve of the fruit, the type of fermentations to expect, the barrel regimen and the blending program it would be this one.

For more than half of her 20 years in winemaking Patty has worked with the fruit from Eason Vineyard. That sort of experience and relationship is incredibly important in the making of great Pinot Noir.

From 2005 we have a wine that is more typical of what we expect from Eason Vineyard than either 2003 or 2004. Eason Vineyard should be typical of the wines from the Dundee Hills in that it has bright, sweet red fruit but at the same time it should be atypical (due to its set-into-the-hillside topography) of the same wines as it has some game, earthy/irony nuances and a bit more of a substantial tannin profile. This is the exact description of the 2005 Eason Vineyard. We recently tasted a vertical of Eason Vineyard from 2000-2004 and while all of those wines were both special and still delicious this may turn out to be the top wine of the lot of them. Time will tell, but this is definitely a great bottle of wine. -the winery

2003 Tasting Notes

A wine of sweet fruit, earthy spice, gamey notes, and beautiful balance. From a tiny vineyard, don't overlook this little gem. Piercingly sweet fruit, earthen spices and firm but not unyielding structure. Sold out except for a bit for Wine Club Members.

From the winery: "There are many great things to say about this wine. Part of it was said in the opening regarding Ward Eason. This was our 10th vintage with Eason Vineyard. We did bottlings of the site in 1996 and 1998 as well as every vintage since 2000. We saw this lower-lying Dundee Hills site go from a blackberry-strewn patch of ground with more broken trellising than not to a beautifully tended site that has grown on us every single year. To us this little 4.3 acre vineyard represents a lot of things that are true and good about making wine from this part of the world. Having the wine from here be one of our favorites did not hurt the cause."

"In 2003 we received perfectly ripe and healthy fruit in a vintage where getting ripeness was easy but getting great health in the vines and fruit was not. Consequently we used a great deal of whole clusters in the fermentation which is something we have been able to do with Eason Vineyard over the years. The 2003 shows a great range of piercingly sweet fruit, earthen spices and firm but not unyielding structure.

This bottling of Eason falls in line with the 1996 and 2000 which were vintages where the fruit was sweet but somewhat tightly wound. There is grace in the wine that will reveal itself over time. For now it is a wonderful wine to enjoy for the splendor of the fruit. We believe we have done a good and honorable job with this wine. We think Ward would have enjoyed this wine."

This tiny (4.3 acre) vineyard has been worked by Patty and Jim since 1994, and the have grown to see it produce some of the most interesting grapes in the area.