2016 Cameron Winery, Pinot Noir “Cuvée Julia” Abbey Ridge, Dundee Hills AVA, Willamette Valley, Oregon.
The rare Cuvée Julia Pinot Noir from John Paul’s iconic Cameron Winery is one of Oregon’s most coveted wines and this dark garnet 2016 version is absolutely stunning right now, almost 8 years after I managed to get it, and it shows off loads of Volnay or Côte de Beaune character with powerful, maturing and earthy red fruits filling out the elegant medium bodied palate. The nose is seducing with wilted roses, brambly berries, mixed spices, incense and delicate truffle notes, all of which seamlessly fold into the palate along with black cherry, plum and tart currant fruits, as well as amaro herbs, cedary wood, orange tea and light leathery notes. The Julia Pinot Noir is vinified from 40 year old vines located in a small block of Martin Ray Massale clonal selections in the Abbey Ridge vineyard. It is aged for two years in barrique, with only a small percentage of newer oak, along with one additional year of rest in bottle. Winemaker John Paul, one of Oregon’s legends, says the label represents a native Madrone tree which grows next to the vineyard. Named in honor of Julia Wayne of Abbey Ridge, who also drew the illustration for the label. Cameron’s oldest vineyard is Abbey Ridge, which located high in the Dundee Hills at an elevation range of 500-700 feet on the classic red Jory soils, that are volcanic in nature. The first vines, the winery notes, were planted here in 1976 and, as some of the oldest vines in Oregon, they produce some of Cameron’s finest wines, like this one. Slightly younger blocks of Pinot noir was planted in 1984 and again in1990 on hillsides above the original vines.
As I’ve noted before many times in my reviews, these Cameron wines never fail to excite Pinot Noir fans, especially Oregon and Burgundy enthusiasts. John Paul believes the best grapes come from dry farmed vineyards and he likes to have his wine aged longer in barrel with most his top Pinots, as noted above, seeing an elevage of close to 24 months. For his barrels, he chooses a small cooper who lives in the village of Saint Romain in Burgundy. His name is Claude Gillet and together with his children and several master coopers they turn out some of the most exquisite wine barrels to be found, and almost Every year Claude and his son, Laurent, visit Paul’s winery, to taste the wines in barrels and make recommendations for choice of forest, toast level and all of the other minutia that go into crafting an oak barrel. Since Paul believes that barrels reach their perfection only after a couple vintages, he prefers to utilize cooperage which is 1-3 years old for his most precious cuvées, like this Julia Pinot Noir. Paul explains that his old sections are typically some of the very last Pinot Noir to be harvested in the Dundee Hills and have loads of energy and earthy tones, slightly less ripe than other prime spots. The resulting wines, Paul continues, which are quite reductive when young, therefore are relatively high in natural acidity and display old world aromatics, certainly as this one does, with a dark pigment, stoniness and lifted by red spices. Set on the red dirt and Jory volcanic soils of the Dundee Hills, there is always a unique sense of the exotic too, though well contrasted by the raw and rustic personality of the house style, wines like this are bucket list quality efforts and I highly recommend buying a few and age them at least 3 to 5 years for best results.
($105 Est.) 95 Points, grapelive