PINOT NOIR: Oregon’s Domaine Serene is where it’s at

So there I was at Paolo’s in Georgetown, chillin’ at the bar with a glass of Chianti Classico after a long day of doing my bureaucratic thing for the state. It was the early 1990s, Bill Clinton was about to be inaugurated and Washington was pretty electric.

As I sat at the bar, I overheard a conversation between the restaurant manager and a wine salesperson who happened to be sitting next to me. This attractive young woman was pitching the manager on a new Pinot Noir from Oregon. Back in those days, Oregon had not yet established its reputation as America’s premier Pinot Noir producing state so the salesperson was working the manager pretty hard. It was obvious to me that this discussion needed an impartial opinion (and I was anxious to get a freebie) so I immediately volunteered to provide one. After a quick recitation of my qualifications (“I’m from West Virginia and I drink wine and, oh, by the way, look at my new shoes...”), the two were duly impressed and agreed to allow me to evaluate the Pinot Noir.

Well, to put it succinctly, the wine was nectar! It was absolutely the best Pinot Noir I had ever tasted and I was effusive in my praise of the stuff. I was so taken with the wine that I persuaded the salesperson to sell me a case of it -- which she did right out of her Volkswagen Beetle parked outside the bar.

The wine was an obscure Pinot Noir from the northern Willamette Valley known as Domaine Serene. To my knowledge , that 1990 Domaine Serene was the first vintage for the winery, now considered to be year in and year out among the best Pinot Noirs produced in Oregon and, indeed, in the US. Since that fateful day, I have made it a point to seek out this wine and buy a few bottles (or more) of each vintage, even though the price of the stuff has quadrupled from the $15 a bottle I paid for it back in 1992.

The winery was established by Ken & Grace Evenstad (Evenstad, incidentally, is the name given to one of their premium Pinot Noirs, which I will tell you about a little futher on). The Evanstad’s were passionate Pinot Noir lovers and selected the now famous Willamette Valley of Oregon to work their magic. Now, while I love Pinot Noir from California, particulary those made in Sonoma’s Russian River Valley, the Carneros District and the Santa Ynez Valley, Oregon Pinot Noir has a different taste profile. It is generally less fruit forward than the wine produced in California, featuring more earthy flavors, and it is a deeper, fuller style of Pinot Noir.

The two mainstay Domaine Serene Pinot Noirs produced and available in some select wine shops around West Virginia are the Yamhill Cuvee and the Evenstad Reserve. While you’ll pay around $60 for the Evenstad, the Yamhill Cuvee is in the $40 range and both are exquisite expressions of this superb wine. Grown and produced in the Red Hills of Dundee in Oregon’s fertile Willamette Valley, the wines of Domaine Serene are handcrafted products and the Pinot Noir is usually aged in a combination of new and used French oak from between 14 and 18 months. The winery also produces excellent Chardonnay made in the white Burgundy style with an emphasis on elegance and balance.

I had the pleasure of tasting the 2004 Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir ($60) recently. What a delicious mouthful of wine! This Pinot Noir is a symphony of flavors and aromas with a nose of dark fruit, spice, vanilla and tobacco, and tastes of black cherries, blueberries, cinnamon and earth. If you wish to consume the wine now, you should definitely decant it into a carafe for at least one hour prior to drinking to allow the flavors to open up. And while the wine is approachable now, you will be rewarded if you wait a few more years before drinking it.

This past Christmas, I opened a 1999 Yamhill Cuvee and it still had wonderful fruit and amazing complexity. I paired the Evenstad with roasted pork tenderloin that had been marinated in rosemary, garlic, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. After roasting the pork, I deglazed the pan drippings with about two ounces of the Pinot Noir and added an ounce of heavy crème. I then sliced the meat and drizzled the sauce over each piece before serving.

MORE: Domaine Serene website