One of the better-kept secrets of the wine world are the pinot noirs from Oregon. Well, they are not a total secret—aficionados have been discovering these gems for a couple of decades now, but compared with the celebrity status of the chardonnays and cabs from its larger and more glamorous neighbor to the south, California, they are still pretty much flying under the radar.
Partially this results from the extremely low level of production, which tend more to European levels than Californian. In fact, many vineyards don't even bother with traditional distribution channels and instead are content to sell their few thousand cases to their enthusiastic mailing list customers, and a handful of restaurants in Portland and Seattle.
Thankfully Cristom in the Willamette Valley functions on a somewhat larger scale. Its pinots are among the very best around, so it's good to be able to actually find them on wine shop shelves.
Many Oregon producers define themselves, accurately if somewhat defensively I feel, as the non-Californians, and Cristom's Steve Doerner epitomizes this attitude. He made wine in California for 14 years before moving to Oregon in 1992 as Cristom's first winemaker. He came in search of the opportunity to produce pinot noir in a cooler climate and on a smaller scale. He practices hands-off, old-world winemaking, employing limited use of new oak and, as he enthusiastically points out, whole cluster pressing, a practice that gives the wines structure and backbone; what he calls "nervocity."
This all results in wines that are more elegant and restrained, and which in style fall somewhere between California's blowsy opulence and Burgundy's intellectual, slow-maturing wines.
Cristom's vineyards are named for family matriarchs. 'The six ladies' each have natural variances in soil and elevation, and the grapes they nurture were selected to highlight each vineyard's distinct attributes. People often identify a favorite among Cristom's 'six ladies,' recognizing that each nurtures a style and flavor all her own.