TN: 2017 Goodfellow Family Cellars Pinot Noir House Block Whistling Ridge Vineyard

  • 2017 Goodfellow Family Cellars Pinot Noir House Block Whistling Ridge Vineyard - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley (5/31/2020)
    Red fruit. Beautifully floral nose. The palate is wound up at this early date but firm with minerals and loaded with gorgeous delicate red fruit with aeration. Reminds me of some of the finer areas of Volnay in Burgundy. Clos du Chateau du Ducs from Lafarge. Caillerets from Y Clerget. So elegant. The finish is super nice but needs time to flesh out complexity. Terrific. Beautiful job Marcus!

Posted from CellarTracker

Having this tonight with a vertically roasted chicken on my RecTec. Beautiful combination. Great job Marcus. A+

Great note Don thanks. My Burgundy budget has moved to Oregon lately. The wines are such a great value and most hit my sweet spot.

Thanks for the note. Still have resisted touching any of the 2017 SVDs

I am sorely tempted…but I will wait.

Marcus is making great wines.

Love these wines. Wonder if Marcus can comment on how the 2018 single block wines are shaping up or may compare to the 2017s.

Hi Brian,

I had to come down from having my wines compared to two producers that I admire quite a lot, and in the case of the d’Angerville Clos de Ducs, my favorite of their wines.(Thank you very much Don, you made my month!)

I’ll take a swing at how the 2018 House Block is showing at this time, but young Pinot Noir is definitely a moving target. YMMV.

The 2017 and 2018 vintages are both excellent, abd both(for my wines) fall into a more “classic” category. Lower alcohols, bright acidity, aromatically expressive, and wanting some cellaring while being at least approachable early on. That said, the House Block bottlings from the two vintages exress themselves very differently.
Tasting the 2017 seems to me to be a bit like picking up a hand of cards and fanning them out just a bit. i.e. there is a clear definition of flavors and layers but all compactly fitting in the same space. The wine is light bodied but dense. And it moves from fruit to earth to spice to tannin to acid quite quickly and then moves as a group into the finish. It’s one of the more dynamic 2017s right now. And alcohols are low, so aromatics jump from the glass even at this early stage. Tannins are crunchy and still dominant in the finish but accompanied by all of the other components.

The 2018 is a much more linear expression of house. Where the 2017 has note of smoke and rock, the 2018 is floral, and orange zest around the bright red fruits that typify the House Block. The 2018 vintage as a whole has a bit more textural fruit through the mid-palate, and while the 2018 House has a fair amount of non-fruit components, the mid-palate is clearly given to the fruit tones, and these are distinct, very pretty, and give a feeling of length to the wine. Shifting first to acidity, and then to some fine but very firm stem tannins.

On the whole, I feel like the 2017 is more integrated now with a year in bottle and the 2018 shows great promise but has all the pieces laid out in a row rather than being a cohesive unit.

For comparison, here’s my note on the 2018 that I had posted earlier.

  • 2018 Goodfellow Family Cellars Pinot Noir House Block Whistling Ridge Vineyard - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley (4/21/2020)
    Sipping on the 2018 House Block this evening. My first impression was cinnamon and raspberries. The scents were so clear. More time, and more consideration brought out green, grassy herbs, clean compost (yes, that’s a good thing), and the red fruit turned more tart - berries that needed an extra day on the bushes. The tannic structure is formidable, but not in excess for the fruit. This is very interesting wine. I hope to try more when it’s officially released. It’s lighter on the palate than most high quality US Pinots, but has as much if not more aromatic complexity - even at so young an age.

When Don Cornutt says this kind of thing about a domestic pinot people are gonna listen! Wow. I am always happy to be corroborated. Congrats Marcus.

Mitch. I don’t think my opinion moves many needles but I did love this. It is a great effort by Marcus.