Cristom Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Mount Jefferson 2019 (95 Points) in the Wine Advocate and under $40 a bottle!! Check out all the wines from Cristom Winery on SALE!
A mind of the caliber of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows. - George Bernard Shaw on wine
We like cows but we like wine better!
Toni and I made a trip to Oregon in the summer of 2019 and although we did see a few wineries it was not really a wine trip we were there to celebrate her Birthday and our 21st anniversary. One of the wineries that we did stop by to visit with our good friend Randy Ford was Cristom Winery. I have been a big fan of this winery for decades and the new releases are all spectacular, but it was good to visit the vineyards and kiss the dirt that makes these wines so special. This trip brought back memories of my first visit to the Willamette Valley in 1996.
It had been over 20 years since my last trip to Oregon but ironically one of the stops that I personally made on my first trip to Oregon over 20 years ago was to see Steve Doerner at Cristom Winery. I had met Steve previously when he was with Calera Winery, which is one of the founding fathers of great Burgundian style pinot noir and chardonnay in the central coast of California so I knew if Steve left this iconic producer the terroir for Cristom had to be special. Well it is over 25 years now and Steve must love it in Oregon because he is still there and he must love Cristom as he is still the winemaker here which is one of the things that gives a winery consistency – the same winemaker for almost three decades.
So, when we secured a deal on the Mount Jefferson Pinot Noir which is their anything but entry level wine- we decided to share it with our “Wine Drinking People”. Check out this incredible value from Oregon along with all the other great wines from Cristom winery on SALE on this offering! You may have heard me say this before, “Oregon is the best value in the world of high level Pinot Noir”!
One of the Best Pinot Noir’s in Oregon is now Under $40 a bottle!
2019 Cristom Pinot Noir Mount Jefferson Willamette Valley
Price: $45.50 Your Price: $37.50
2019 Cristom Pinot Noir Mount Jefferson Willamette Valley Magnum
Price: $93.75 Your Price: $82.50
Mt. Jefferson Cuvée is a blend of the Cristom estate Pinot Noir vineyards along with exceptional fruit we source from neighboring vineyards in the Willamette Valley. These vineyard sites have been thoughtfully selected over the years, and are planted on a variety of soil types, elevations and aspects, representing the Willamette Valley Appellation as a broader whole. These vineyards are farmed by committed winegrowers we are proud to partner with, with each site adding to the character, fruit, and structure of the wine, giving “Mt. Jeff” its deserved reputation as one of the most stylistically consistent Pinot Noirs in the world.
(95 Points) The caliber of the 2019 Mt. Jefferson Cuvée Pinot Noir, Cristom's largest-production SKU, is impressive this vintage. Medium ruby-purple, it features savory cranberry sauce, orange peel and tar aromas with tones of dried flowers and spice. The medium-bodied palate offers the pleasing, gently grippy tannins and bright freshness characteristic of Cristom's generous whole-cluster inclusion, and it finishes with intense, layered fruits and floral accents. Daniel Estrin joined the team as winemaker and vineyard manager in 2019 after several years at Littorai in Sonoma County. "I was trepidatious about the amount of stems, after using only about 30% at Littorai," he says, "but I leaned into it, and it does a lot for Oregon Pinot, which can be very fruity." About 10,000 cases were made. Erin Brooks, Wine Advocate (Dec 2021)
Wine Watch Review: A pretty bouquet of raspberry, cranberry and red cherry berry fruit with notes of exotic spices, mint, dried flowers and hints of smoky nuance. Velvety smooth on the tongue with a good amount of bright red berry fruit, exotic spices and a firm hand of acidity holding things together nicely. This wine is delicious right out of the bottle but has the structure to age at least 5-7 years or more in your cellar, better on the second day open. Finish 45+ Most Excellent +
The rest of the wines from Cristom available at Wine Watch:
2021 Cristom Rose Pinot Noir Willamette Valley
Price: $30.00 Your Price: $26.40
Cristom Rose of Pinot Noir is comprised entirely of fruit from the Eola-Amity estate. For this release, Cristom blended one cluster from each plant of specific blocks of the Jessie and Louise Vineyards, to the base of the wine, which hails from their third-leaf Paul Gerrie Vineyard plantings. This blending choice brings intensity and weight to the rose, while at the same time allowing for longer hang time for the Pinot remaining on the vine. Crisp hints of watermelon, petite strawberry and lychee fruit highlights this fresh, vibrant wine.
2020 Cristom Viognier Willamette Valley
Price: $33.25 Your Price: $29.26
Cristom Vineyards has played a unique role in the pioneering of Viognier in the Willamette Valley. We were among the first to grow the varietal with our original estate plantings in 1993, and the first winery to produce an estate bottling of Viognier with our 1996 vintage release. Additionally, Cristom winemaker Steve Doerner previously produced the varietal during his 14 year tenure with California’s legendary Calera Wine Company; making him America’s longest running winemaker of Viognier, having produced the varietal for nearly all 40 vintages of his winemaking career.
The Cristom Estate Viognier exhibits the pure, nearly textbook characteristics of this varietal, with floral aromas of orange blossoms, honeysuckle, clover and anise, as well as ripe fruit aromas of peach, apricot, and lychee. Slightly viscous on the palate, with bright and mouth-watering acidity that support the fruit structure of the wine, it is well integrated and perfectly balanced.
2019 Cristom Chardonnay Eola Amity Hills
List Price: $46.50 Your Price: $40.92
(94 Points) The 2019 Chardonnay Eola-Amity Hills is characterized by broad, intense flavors foiled by tangy acidity. It offers aromas of apple pie, honeycomb, toast and white blossoms and is intensely flavored, ripe and textural, finishing with energetic freshness. Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
2021 Cristom Pinot Gris Willamette Valley
List Price: $34.25 Your Price: $30.14
The Pinot Gris block has consistently produced a lifted, floral and citrus-tinged wine that combines zesty, mineral-driven accents with a distinctively creamy finish.
2020 Cristom Pinot Noir Willamette Valley
Price: $36.25 Your Price: $31.90 Quantity in Stock: 2
The 2020 Cristom Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is a fresh wine of precision and focus defined by crunchy acidity and bright red fruit.
2019 Cristom Pinot Noir Marjorie Willamette Valley
Price: $85.00 Your Price: $74.80
The famed Marjorie Vineyard boasts Cristom’s oldest estate plantings, predating the company back to 1982. Named in honor of winegrower-owner Tom Gerrie’s grandmother, Marjorie is distinctive at Cristom both for being own-rooted, and for its lower-density plantings, (605 vines/acre; 1,495 vines/hectacre), with 6 feet between vines and 12 feet between rows.
2018 Cristom Louise Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills
Price: $70.00 Your Price: $61.60
(95 points) “ Assertive red berry preserve, cherry and floral aromas are complemented by sexy Asian spice, incense and smoky mineral accents. Shows impressive depth and sharp delineation on the palate, offering spice-tinged red and blue fruit liqueur, cola and spicecake flavors that pick up candied rose and blood orange nuances with air. Finishes extremely long and pure, with fine-grained tannins providing shape and grip to lingering black raspberry and five-spice powder notes. (JR) “ (8/2020) Vinous
2017 Cristom Eileen Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills
Price: $60.00 Your Price: $52.80
(95 points) “ Bright red. An intensely perfumed bouquet displays ripe red/blue fruit, baking spice, incense qualities and a strong, mineral overtone. Offers sweet, penetrating raspberry, blueberry, cherry pit, lavender pastille and spicecake flavors that show serious depth as well as vivacity. Displays impressive clarity and spicy thrust on the finish, which features smoothly interwoven tannins and suave, clinging floral and mineral notes. (JR) “ (6/2019) Vinous
2016 Cristom Jessie Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills
Price: $60.00 Your Price: $52.80
(95 Points) Medium ruby colored, the 2016 Pinot Noir Jessie Vineyard is a touch reticent on the nose, opening to broody scents of black cherries and licorice with notes of herbs, Bergamot and grated baking spice with earthy touches of soil and wet leaves. Medium to full-bodied and wonderfully silky in the mouth, it's packed with layers of ripe fruit, spice and earth. It gives fine, firm tannins and mouthwatering acidity, finishing very long and very layered. This is wonderfully complex with loads of layers—give it some time in bottle to show its best. Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
2016 Cristom Estate Syrah Willamette Valley
Price: $42.50 Your Price: $37.40 Quantity in Stock: 16
2005 Cristom Syrah Willamette Valley
Price: $49.00 Your Price: $43.12 Quantity in Stock: 3
Cristom began experimenting with Syrah in 2002, by grafting over plantings of Chardonnay on the lower slopes of our estate. We carefully selected which vines to graft over, choosing a low-lying block on our hillside where heat accumulation is at its highest on the estate, giving our Syrah the best opportunity to ripen in a moderate maritime climate.
Originally, 2.5 acres (1.01 hectares) of Chardonnay were grafted over to four clones of Syrah. The clones selected – 174, 383, 470, and 877 – were chosen primarily for their recognized heritage of producing small berries, encouraging our chances of ripening Syrah in the Willamette Valley. However, after cool growing seasons in 2007, 2008 and 2010, we made the decision to graft half of the estate Syrah over to Viognier in 2011. All that remains is 0.31 acres (0.125 hectares) of each of the four clones, totaling 1.24 acres (0.50 hectares) of estate Syrah.
We produce an extremely limited quantities of this wine, resulting in a bit of a cult following for it over the years. The Cristom Estate Syrah wines are defined by spice, balance, perfume, texture and nuance, gaining complexity in the bottle for a decade or more.
Vintage Notes In 2015, vines got off to a warm and dry start with the earliest budbreak (March!) ever recorded at our estate – a full 3 weeks earlier than our twenty-five-year average. Warmth continued through spring, leading to bloom beginning in most blocks at the end of May – also the earliest ever recorded at the estate. The warm, dry weather during flowering was prime for yielding a heavy fruit set, and the vineyard produced sizeable clusters with large berries. These ideal growing conditions created the rare combination of abundant quantity and exceptional quality fruit, producing intensely fragrant and energetic wines that show a blend of depth, concentration and nuance.
A bit about Cristom Vineyards:
Cristom Vineyards began a quarter of a century ago as a collaboration between an engineer and a biochemist who each possessed a deep-rooted respect for the land, the natural winemaking process, and Pinot Noir. 25 years later, second-generation winegrower and owner Tom Gerrie leads winemaker Steve Doerner and our tenured viticulture team in tending our Estate vineyards, and producing elegant, dynamic wines, recognizable by our hallmark style of whole-cluster fermentation by native yeasts.
Our winemaking philosophy begins with respect for our land and estate vines. We're proud to be Certified Sustainable by Low Input Viticulture & Enology (LIVE), both in our winery which we run responsibly, and in our fields, that are thoughtfully and meticulously farmed with a focus on quality.
The four estate Pinot Noir vineyards - Eileen, Jessie, Louise and Marjorie, named for Gerrie family matriarchs - each possess natural variances in soil, elevation and exposition. With minimal intervention during the winemaking process, Tom, Steve and team strive to craft wines that are an honest recording of both the vineyard and the vintage, producing the ultimate expressions of the stellar fruit we’re fortunate enough to work with. Recognized globally as a leading producer in our beloved Willamette Valley, our wines continue to be a unique blend of tradition, modernity and finesse.
A bit about the Founding Fathers Paul Gerrie:
After graduating from University of Pittsburgh with a degree in Engineering, I became interested in wine. I started with French bottles (with the occasional California jug tossed in) and can still remember my first exceptional Pinot noir. It was a 1980 Echezeaux and it was astonishing. From that point on I was hooked on Pinot!
Around 1990, I started looking for a career change that would be interesting and challenging. Despite the fact that I lived on the East Coast, the first thing that came to mind was the wine business. Around that time, some friends invited my wife and me to attend the International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) in McMinnville, Oregon. During our 1991 visit, we fell in love with Oregon and began to think it would be a good place to raise our young family. Soon after, I was introduced to Mike Etzel who helped me to find land that would produce great Pinot noir grapes. Mike found the site that is now Cristom.
In the summer of 1992, my wife Eileen and our children, Christine and Tom and I moved from Pennsylvania to Oregon. There has been no looking back. Through serendipity and good fortune, we were able to hire Steve Doerner as our winemaker, and Mark Feltz as our vineyard manager. Our first vintage was in 1992 and we were up and running. Twenty years later, we are still trying to make the best Pinot Noir on the planet!
A bit about winemaker Steve Doerner:
In 1992, after working for Calera (a California Pinot Noir producer) for 14 years, I was ready for a change. I identified two goals to help determine where I wanted to work next. First, I wanted to continue making Pinot Noir, and second I wanted to work for a small company. It didn’t take much persuasion from Paul Gerrie to convince me that Oregon was the place and that Cristom was the company. At the time it seemed like a hard decision but it’s been twenty years now, and I’ve never looked back.
My goal is to make wines that have balance, wines that have weight and power and finesse and elegance. I’ve honed my craft by traveling and studying winemaking around the world. I’ve been to Chile, Italy, France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. But Oregon is always home and I like working at Cristom because it’s so varied. My work is influenced by the seasons and by a constant desire to meld the art of winemaking with the terroir of the Willamette Valley. Of course I’m incredibly proud of our Pinot noirs, but also of our exceptional Chardonnay, Viognier, and Syrah.
Older Vintages in perfect condition from Cristom that will be here in a month from one of our collector’s cellar.
We have been procuring private collections here at Wine Watch for over a decade now and most of the older wines we have in the store come from local collectors. We don’t buy wines that we do not drink first to test the provenance and this collector has been stock piling Cristom’s wines going all the way back to the first vintage!! There are also some incredible large format wines on this offering and you can see the writing on the wall there will be a vintage Cristom wine tasting on the calendar coming up over the next few months- Stay tuned!!
1998 Cristom Jessie Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills 5 Liter
Price: $650.00 Your Price: $572.00 Quantity in Stock: 1
During the bloom and set time frame, the June weather in Oregon was so bad that even local residents described it as “terrible.” The weather was cool and damp throughout bloom and set. The cluster count was low, and the clusters were few in number. Growers got a break when the weather turned warmer with long sunny days, cool nights, and with the rains holding off long enough. Pleasant dry fall weather enabled most vineyards to be harvested before the first serious rain moved in. Tiny crop, but with good color and flavor intensity. – Read more at: https://www.decanter.com/wine/grape-varieties/pinot-noir/1998-vintage-guide-for-oregon-pinot-noir-115746/
2000 Cristom Pinot Noir Marjorie Willamette Valley 3 Liter
Price: $395.00 Your Price: $347.60 Quantity in Stock: 1
2000 Cristom Jessie Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills 3 Liter
Price: $395.00 Your Price: $347.60 Quantity in Stock: 1
2000 Cristom Louise Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills 3 liter
List Price: $395.00 Your Price: $347.60 Quantity in Stock: 1
2000 Cristom Eileen Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills 5 Liter
Price: $595.00 Your Price: $523.60 Quantity in Stock: 1
Usually it is rain either in the spring or during the harvest or both that determines the quality of an Oregon vintage, but 2000 will go down in history as a relatively dry vintage. The critical summer weeks during July and August remained dry and cool and the fruit ripened evenly and unusually well. Read more at: https://www.decanter.com/wine/wine-regions/oregon-region/2000-vintage-guide-for-oregon-pinot-noir-115573
2001 Cristom Louise Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills 3 liter
Price: $395.00 Your Price: $347.60 Quantity in Stock: 1
2001 Cristom Eileen Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills 5 liter
Price: $525.00 Your Price: $462.00 Quantity in Stock: 1
The year started out fairly warm with budbreak in the Willamette Valley on April 10 & 11, right on time. There was no significant rainfall prior to or immediately after budbreak. Bloom was also right on schedule occurring from June 15 – 25. During the remainder of the growing season, temperatures remained moderate. There was 1″ of rainfall recorded 3-4 weeks before harvest which actually provided a welcome drink for the vines and allowing them to go into the final stretch without any problems. Overall, it was almost an ideal growing and ripening weather. With less than an inch of rain during harvest, the fruit came in looking healthy. Yields were slightly above average. Read more at: https://www.decanter.com/learn/vintage-guides/oregon/2001-oregon/2001-vintage-guide-for-oregon-pinot-noir-115460/