Here's a blurb from the winery literature:

 

"We founded Boedecker Cellars in 2003 to craft small-production, food-oriented, distinctive Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from some of Oregon's greatest vineyards. By keeping our production levels low, we can lavish our attention on every detail of the winemaking process.

 

"The wines we craft reflect much of our own character and our own tastes.  Our signature Stewart and Athena Pinot Noir blends showcase the unique palates of the two winemakers as well as the distinctiveness of the vineyards.  The crisp, bright profile of our all-stainless Purity Chardonnay reflects our belief in wine's role as a companion for food at the table rather than a showcase for oak barrels.

 

"Recognizing that great wine begins with the vineyard, we source our Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from some of the most devoted growers in the Willamette Valley. Ranging from the Northern Willamette Valley, across the Dundee Hills, and south to the Eola Hills and Coast Range, each site provides us with a different combination of soil, exposure, altitude, and weather - all of which affect the character of the fruit.

 

"Each growing season, we maintain constant contact with our growers, crisscrossing the Willamette Valley from end to end, tasting the fruit, assessing quality, and collaborating on everything from canopy management to crop levels in each block."

 

Of the wines Boedecker makes, the small-lot Shea Vineyard bottling (50 cases!) is their top wine. This year's version is dark, rich and somewhat voluptuous, while still having a strong sense of minerality and a sprinkling of fine tannins. The flavors are dark cherry and blackberry. Rather than being a fruit bomb like too many of the bigger '06s, this wine has just enough structure to harness all that fruit - you can drink this now, and with gusto, but a bit of patience will reward. The '05 version of this wine was awarded a WS 92 points.

 

2006 Brooks Pinot Noir Rastaban
Price: $50
Production: 65 cases
Drinkability: Approachable, better with time
Availability: Very Limited

 

>> Purchase more of the Rastaban

 

We've reviewed the Brooks story before. But this write-up was poignant, I thought. Here's an excerpt from The Salem Monthly, by Mary Owen:

 

"Almost 13 years old, Pascal "Paco" Brooks' favorite color is blue. He is passionate about watching the History Channel, studying social studies at his middle school, and eating cookie dough. And he loves snowboarding, swimming, playing football, going to amusement parks - and, oh yeah, owning a winery.

 

"Possibly the youngest winery owner in the world, Paco loved working with his dad, Jimi Brooks, founder of Brooks Wines, now at 9360 SE Eola Hills Road in Amity. Jimi Brooks passed away unexpectedly in 2004, but not before he passed on his love of the grapes to his son.

 

"Paco wants to be a winemaker when he grows up," said Janie Brooks Heuck, Jimi's sister.

 

"Heuck had no intention of being in the wine industry, but found herself responsible for the business operations of the winery after her brother's death. Encouraged and embraced by a group of local winemakers, she took a viticulture and enology course at the University of California, Davis. She now runs the vineyard until she can hand over the operations to Paco, who lives in Pennsylvania with his mother and visits during the summer and other times throughout the year. With almost four years at the helm, Heuck continues her commitment to keep Brooks Wines in line with Jimi's philosophy: to keep the earth alive and the ecosystem intact and to achieve the greatest depth, flavors and balance in a wine - only by blending.

 

"Jimi Brooks' love for wine began while working for the Deschamps family in the Beaujolais region of France, where he headed after finishing his communications studies at Linfield College. But it was after his return to Oregon, on a hot, still September afternoon at WillaKenzie Estate where he worked under the tutelage of Laurent Montalieu that cemented his passion."

 

(Read the full article here)

 

The Rastaban pinot noir is Brooks' top offering. It is a dense, intense wine with a sauvage character, stuffed with fruit, and showing some youthful structure right now. Clearly, it has the guts to cellar well - and in fact, should be left alone for at least another six months. Your patience will be rewarded with a deeply-flavored, complex and lengthy pinot of great character. If you must drink this now, extended decanting is appropriate.

Oregon's Willamette Valley is about 100 miles long. At the northern end is Portland, our major city and culinary jewel of the United States. It's one of the finest places to live in the country. Most of the top wine producers are within about 25 miles of Portland.

 

At the far end of the Valley is Eugene - pollen capital of the US, intractably plagued by gangs of street youth, the residents of which are firmly and mistakenly convinced that they matter in some larger national or world context. It's also home to a handful of underperforming wineries as well as a light sprinkle of promising producers.

 

Then, there is the vast area in between the two cities. One of the outlier production zones is Amity, Oregon. It's just a few miles shy of McMinnville along old Hwy 99, and is notable for being a major speed trap. Oh, and for their annual Spring flower festival featuring - well, anyway.

 

Located smack dab in the middle of Amity is a nondescript building that houses a handful of new-to-newish wine producers, all of which are making pretty damn good wine these days. Iota, Antica Terra, Coelho, and producer of this month's featured wine, Johan.

 

Johan Vineyards actually owns a large vineyard, about 65 acres - they are neighbors of Left Coast Cellars, across the road more or less from Firesteed, south of McMinnville and closer to Salem.  At the winemaking helm is Dan Rinke, whose vitea includes time in the cellars of California producers Domaine Alfred and newish cult-producer Rhys.

 

This wine is a big, solid mouthful of fruit featuring lots of thickly textured blackberry and black cherry flavored fruit and balanced by a streak of ripe tannin that comes in on the finish. It has a real sense of weight and density. Given some air, it opens nicely to show plenty of complexity and fine length. With another few months in the bottle, it should integrate and open a bit to show a broad, detailed flavor palate. Decant now, or cellar for about six months.

2007 Broadley Pinot Noir Willamette Valley
Price: $21
Drinkability: Lovely now
Availability: Still a bit around

 

>> Buy more of the Broadley

 

Broadley scored in the challenging '07 vintage!  Their entire lineup of pinots is fresh, juicy, beautifully balanced wines with classic flavors, terrific lifting acidity, and great detail and length.

 

Now, I often avoid Broadley. I find them too extracted, and much too oaky. But the circumstances of the '07 vintage seem to have forced the Broadley winemaking into a stylistic corner - the winemaking had to be gentler . . . more temperate . . . to preserve the elegance of the fruit. The results are my favorite Broadley wines since '92.

 

Broadley, as an aside, is located in my hometown of Monroe. When I left Monroe in 1980, only Alpine Vineyards was in the neighborhood, but these days Broadley and Benton Lane are lurking in the hills, too. The Broadley building is an old, red brick, single-story edifice that was previously a flower and gift shop during my youth, and a DeSoto dealership some decades prior to that.

 

Monroe was never much of a wine town, and despite Broadley and others, it is highly unlikely to become the next Carlton (a dinky town up valley that has become a bit of a wine destination). What else to say about Monroe?  Why, nothing at all.

 

This entry-level Willamette Valley bottling is a clean, fresh, balanced, varietally spot-on pinot noir that fills a real void: well-made Oregon wine for not too much money. There's plenty of ripe fruit here, and it is not a light-weight at all. And while it's balanced by fresh, lively acidity, there is very little wood or tannin to get in the way of immediate drinking satisfaction. A purist's pinot noir, and all about the fruit. Drink now.