J.K. Carriere Clarion an Atypical Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Oregon 750ml

Thesis: A disambiguated, summer red

The Cliff Notes: The color is radiant rose red. The nose presents as blue: blue fruit, blue candy, blueberry cheesecake. Taste, and like a kid in summer, your mouth is crammed with huckleberries, gooseberries, marionberries. Fresh on acid, plus immersive in its sheer volume, it wants you to play and gives no quarter. You’ve somehow found yourself in the duality of your back patio and the land of Willy Wonka, where snozzberries taste like snozzberries and a fantastical story is unfolding in your glass. You’ve won, Charlie, my dear child, you’ve won! Might as well go all in on this atypical elevator and blow through the glass ceiling of your evening.

The Story: We love this wine. It’s not really about terroir or age-ability. It’s an archetype, a dream sequence, an idea about what we would want from a red wine, if the baselines and rules got blown out. It plays as a summer, chill-able red. It blurs the line of color and fruit with the acidity and structure of a white. It is a direct response to adversity from the possibility of wildfire smoke locking into grape skins in 2020. Our job was, nonetheless, winemaking. So, we decided, dreamt it into existence, acted, and made it taste great.

Fermentation: It’s clean 100% native yeast fermented Pinot noir from three vintages. 2020 required radical action and quick juicing of the grapes to get rid of the skins and with them any smoke effect. That clear Pinot juice was, in turn, cool fermented to dryness with the intent to produce massive fruit esters. To this we added back 2019 Pinot to provide red fruits and elan, plus 2018 Pinot to provide deep color and structure, before putting it down to barrel.

Elevage: 100% barrel aged in older French oak barrels. Aged using lees addition and flipping the extinct Champagne methodologies we normally use to instead add color and broaden an earthy mid-palate. Racked once and filtered prior to bottling February 2021.

Vineyards: These grapes are from our three best vineyards, our own St. Dolores Estate (11 years) near the top of the Chehalem Mountains AVA, Temperance Hill Vineyard (40 years) at the top of the Eola-Amity Hills AVA, and Gemini Vineyard (29 years) on the northern shoulder of the Chehalem Mountains AVA.

https://jkcarriere.com/family-of-wines/