2015 Portland Wine Company “Love & Squalor” Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon.
Winemaker Matt Berson has done more than ten years of harvests now for his tiny urban winery based in Portland, Oregon and each time I try his wines I am more and more impressed and can’t believe how reasonably priced his wines are, especially his signature Pinot Noir. Coming off six vineyards, primarily Sunny Mountain, Temperance Hill, Cherry Grove and Medici, the 2015 Love & Squalor is also made up of eight different clones all of which give depth of flavor, complexity and mouth feel. The name Love & Squalor is an ode to and a tribute to iconic author J.D. Salinger, one of Berson’s favorites, who lovingly and with some irony makes his wines with passion and with a less than glitzy winery. The 2015 Love & Squalor Pinot saw an 18-month elevage in well seasoned used French barriques, which allows it to show refined fruit maturity and elegance without obtuse or overt oak, there is a textural pleasure, but with an underlying class and freshness that you do not find in wines in this price class, and this 2015 is all about quality in the glass with lovely layers of expressive red fruit and a smooth tannin structure. Berson, who was a cellar rat in Oregon before venturing out into the world and doing stints around the globe in paces that include New Zealand, Napa, Germany, and Argentina where he gained the skills to come home and start his own label with success making wines, especially Riesling and this Pinot Noir, which are really worth searching high and low for. The 2015 is ripe with layers of black cherry, plum and sweet raspberry fruits primarily adding light mocha notes as well as brambly spices, ultra fine tannins, delicate herb/tea notes and a touch of minerallity. This medium bodied Pinot offers a lot of pleasure and roundness on the palate for immediate drinking, but should go a few years too, one of the best Love & Squalor(s) to date this really good juice for the price, enjoy now and often.
($22 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive

By admin