2023 Brooks Wines, Pinot Noir “Janus” Willamette Valley, Oregon.
The 2023 vintage collection looks set to be a brilliant set of wines from Brooks, with both the Rieslings and Pinots being fabulous and lifted efforts, especially this lovely, dark garnet/ruby hued and structured Janus Pinot Noir with its nose lifting from the glass with rose petal, dark berries and truffle notes with a palate of deep black cherry, juicy plums, raspberry and currant fruits with marvelous textural silkiness, mineral notes and a light sense of toasty French oak. This is beautiful and serious Oregon Pinot Noir, opulent, but with fine balance and an incredible long finish, it is a wine with huge potential and pleasure. There is lots of excitement at Brooks Winery these days with Janie Brooks Heuk, who runs this innovative Oregon winery that specializes in Pinot Noir and Riesling, after promoting her long time assistant winemaker, Claire Jarreau, to the lead role here. I mentioned this transition in my prior reviews and I was really looking forward to see what Jarreau could do here and, as noted, was very impressed. Janus, one of the Brooks wines, is named for the God for new beginnings, as well as endings, the future, the past and doorways in Roman mythology, which founder Jimi Brooks was into. The 2023 vintage included some drama, with many diverse pick dates some before and some after a big rain dump in September, but the combination has actually made for an exciting and complex wine that is really blossoming in the bottle and the glass. This multi-vineyard Janus, just 1000 cases produced, finished with 13.5% natural alcohol, good acidity and good ripe depth, that should allow a long life ahead.
The Janus Pinot Noir, sourced from top organic sites, including the Brooks Estate, Crannell, Muska, Sunny Mountain, Temperance Hill, Eola Springs, Muska-Bement and Fayetta, was hand picked and 100% de-stemmed with a native yeast fermentation and cool maceration to preserve aromatics. This vintage saw 11 Months in mostly used French oak barrels, allowing for nice integration of flavors and transparency. I remember tasting some of the first Brooks Pinot with the late Jimi Brooks, the founding winemaker, looking back it was a very special moment in time, and though sad he isn’t around now, you can still feel his presence and influence in these wines and certainly within his family, these wines truly possess his soul. Jimi liked lean and energy filled wines, and as I have said before, If you admire Pinot Noir, no matter where from, be it Burgundy or the new world, this wine will please and seduce you, it has a core of vibrant acid and silky ripe tannins holding the fruit in place, but allowing everything to shine in graceful fashion, for me it is one of the best all round quality offerings out there, and again one of the finest in the Brooks lineup. The Brooks winery is an inspirational story, starting with passion, leading to heartbreaking loss and then to love of family and rise to an American dream come true. Brooks is a big advocate for sustainable practices and has certified the estate to biodynamics, and focuses on organic grapes from non-estate sources here in the Willamette Valley. I look forward to re-visiting this Janus in a few years and highly recommend putting a few bottles down for 5 to 7 years, drink over the next 15 years.
($55 Est.) 94+ Points, grapelive