J. Christopher Basalte Pinot Noir 2017
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The Basalte Pinot Noir is selected from vineyards in the Chehalem Mountains. The extremely rocky, fractures basalt subsoils in this area produce wines with great balance and a rocky minerality.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
From a selection of basalt-rich vineyards, including estate sources, this wine recalls pine-top mountain ridges in its haunting scent of pine tips and cedar. The black cherry flavors are forward and lush, then gathered by fruit-skin tannins as the wine finishes in an elegant mode.
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James Suckling
Quite pure red-cherry aromas and spicy notes, together with some sanguine rust and terra cotta. The palate has very smoothly rendered tannins that hold blueberry and red-cherry flavors. Elegant and precise. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Sleek, refined and expressive, with lively raspberry, crushed stone and herb tea accents that build structure on a long finish. Drink now through 2027.
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Wine Enthusiast
This elegant, structured wine includes grapes from the famed Medici Vineyard. Fruit flavors run from ripe strawberry to lighter blackberry, with good supporting acidity. Barrel aging brings in highlights of coffee grounds and cocoa powder.
Other Vintages
2019-
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James
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Located in Oregon’s Northern Willamette Valley, J. Christopher Wines is a boutique winery that specializes in Pinot Noir made in the traditional style of Burgundy, and in Sauvignon Blanc modeled after the superlative wines of Sancerre. The winery is owned by world renowned Ernst Loosen, of Weingut Dr. Loosen in Germany. Erni’s lifetime passion for the wines of Burgundy has led to a philosophy to produce elegant, nuanced wines in a distinctly Old World style with an emphasis on lower alcohol and a modest amount of oak. The wines have garnered an international reputation for their purity, balance and food-friendly drinkability.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
The Chehalem Mountains is a northwest-southeast span of several distinct mountains, ridges and peaks in the northern part of the Willamette Valley. Of all of Willamette Valley's smaller AVAs, it is closest to the city of Portland. Its highest summit, Bald Peak at an elevation of 1,633 feet, serves to generate cooler air for the rest of the AVA and its hillside vineyards. The region covers 70,000 acres but only 1,600 acres are planted to vines; soils of the Chehalem Mountains are a mix of basalt, ocean sediment and loess.