No notes for Day 2. Lasted about 90 minutes on Day 1. Drank as an afternoon apertif before some Shrimp and Flannery Ribeyes paired with Pliny the Elder. Mixed it up today and blackened the ribeye and shrimp in a cast iron skillet on the weber. The lovely piney dank of the Pliny pairs awesome with Surf and Turf.
Marcus, why is Richard’s so delicate compared to the WR for example?
Gets me excited to taste the 4th bottling of WR Chardonnay, The Berseker Cuvee.
2018 Goodfellow Family Cellars Chardonnay Richard’s Cuvee Whistling Ridge Vineyard- USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley, Ribbon Ridge (4/12/2020)
This wine is brilliantly clear in the Grassl Liberte glass. Pale Yellow with hints of gold. Its wound tight but you cant hide the minerals and shells, ripe Meyer lemon, this slowly building caramel note and some subtle hints of flint. After some time in the glass, some pineapple pokes out. Elegant and soft on the palate. lemon/lime on the front of the palate with a creamy mouthfeel with chalky minerality. Bracing acidity is present throughout, buts it’s not dominant. This subtle but creamy mouthfeel and barrel character build into the long finish. This wine is all about elegance to me—an explosion of complex flavor in a 12.1% package. There is a lot going on to keep you interested. It has me pondering and saying yum all at the same time.
Where the Ribbon Ridge and Whistling Ridge bottlings are also favorites of mine, the Richard’s sets the bar. There’s plenty of acids, but the wine just seems more restrained and less chiseled on the nose. Whereas to me, the other two mentioned bottlings are more dominated by acid, The Richard’s Cuvee is nicely balanced and nuanced. It always seems just slightly riper than the other bottlings to me. The 2018 rendition might be the most delicate and feminine Richards in recent memory. To me, it seems every year with improvements in farming and Marcus’ craft that this wine keeps getting better. We need to have a vertical tasting of a bunch of these blind sometime soon. If Goodfellow made a heritage white wine it would be this. At <$50, its excellent QPR compared to white burgundy and other top Oregon offerings. No worries of pre-mox with DIAM 10 closure. 2018 across the board seems to be another solid vintage for Goodfellow.
Thanks David. I really want to understand from Marcus what makes the Richard’s so special? does it always come from a certain block?, slightly different process? inquiring minds want to know.
Sean, what a great note, thanks! Glad I went in for a full case of this. I was on the fence about opening one early, but your note has inspired me. I’ll report back soon.
So far, we only have one block of Chardonnay at WR. This fall a second block, grafted with clones from Cameron’s Clos Electrique planting are coming on line.
The site itself is extraordinarily special. Soils are shallow sedimentary, with little ability to hold moisture. That forces roots deeper to find water during our drought summers. The regular afternoon breeze also dries things out and thickens the skins on the fruit. Since the vineyard is ridge top it gets both more wind and less direct sun than the slopes. Put together, that adds up to a site that develops flavor early but with less sugar accumulation. Thicker skins enhance phenolics, and flavor accumulation leading to a savory balance to the Willamette Valley’s softer fruit. It’s a rare place where power and elegance come together and a very flavorful wine can be produced at 12.1% abv (2011 was 12.3%, 2017 was 12.8%, 2016 was 13.5%).
The Richard’s Cuvée is primarily a barrel selection, but the defining consistency across vintage is older wood, 820L puncheon, and adherence to cool long ferments with little lees manipulation but long contact. That cuvee just represents the best work, but finer/delicate is the standard for us. Powerful/impressive isn’t really very difficult.
Sean, not that Marcus needs another sales person, but if you haven’t ordered some of the Durant, that is another great wine in The Goodfellow stable.
According to Shipping/tracking, my 18’s will arrive some time this week, so I’m guessing my first Richard’s of the new vintage will be tasted this weekend
Informational and some pimping here. In 2000 Patty and I planted the most northeastern block of the Estate Vineyard to Pommard and some Wadensvil. This block runs from the eastern edge of our 3 acre Wadensvil Block down to a flat spot at the eastern edge of the site. This is all along the fence line that separates our site from Whistling Ridge.
From 2003 (first harvest) to 2017 we found that this block produced good but not exceptional fruit. Frustratingly the Wads block is just to the west and the Grapes of Wrath Block which is the base of the Estate Old Vine bottling is adjacent to the south. For 15 harvests to not see any evidence of an upside was, to us, weird. In 2018 we split the block in about half east to west at a spot in the block where a small bump exists. We fermenter the fruit up hill from this bump separate from the downhill fruit. As expected the fruit adjacent to the Wadensvil Block turned out beautifully. It went into the 2018 Estate. The downhill block was fine but clearly more pedestrian and went into the Reserve, per usual for this block.
This coincided with our renewed production of Chardonnay that began in 2015 with fruit from Durant Vineyard. The 2017 vintage definitely affirmed that we were starting to produce the quality of Chardonnay that we had been hoping we could when we re-booted this program. It also coincided with the distinct rise in the ability of Oregon wineries to sell Chardonnay on a wider basis.
So, in 2019 we acquired the pruning cuttings of Dijon 76 and 96 from Brick House Vineyard and top grafted this lower, flatter and more heavily shaded part of the block. We had about a 95% take rate and should produce a crop in 2020 From 21-year old vines on about 2 acres.
This block is essentially across the fence from where Marcus’ WR Chardonnay is planted. Soil, elevation and aspect are basically identical. I am very excited about this project and the prospects it holds especially given the abject quality and success of the wines Marcus has produced from the hillside.
Certainly Marcus and I are different, we make our wines differently and he is certainly more experienced than me with Chardonnay. Nonetheless we approach the mentality of winemaking and farming very similarly. I’m hopeful that we can make wines that live up to the lofty standards he has set in Ribbon Ridge!
As I think I mentioned at the time, you sold me on some Goodfellow chards during the Berserker happy hour/zoom session when we were discussing them. I added some of the syrah to a mix of the whites, and according to my e-mail, Brown Truck Santa will be here tomorrow with my shipment. Looking forward to trying these!
Brown Truck Santa is supposed to drop me a Goodfellow present today too! I’ll keep my hands off as much as possible before my 2017 Goodfellow cellar defenders arrive at a later time.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
