The 2019 Pinot Noir Jerusalem Hill Vineyard is particularly fragrant and expressive this vintage. It has a medium ruby color and is loaded with complex notes of aniseed, amaro and juniper that complement a core of pomegranate and rhubarb. The medium-bodied palate is refreshing and spicy, with layer after layer of concentrated fruit, a seamless texture and very long finish streaked with lavender.

Medium ruby, the 2018 Pinot Noir Jerusalem Hill Vineyard is scented of botanicals, dried roses and aniseed with a core of wild berry fruit. The medium-bodied palate is ultra concentrated and perfumed. Its plush fruit is supported by abundant, grainy tannins and mouthwatering acidity, and it boasts a very long, fragrant finish.

Medium ruby-purple in color, the 2014 Pinot Noir Jerusalem Hill Vineyard displays fragrant rose hip tea, potpourri and dried lavender notes over a core of Bing cherries, pomegranate and cranberries with wafts of garrigue and dried leaves. Medium to full-bodied, it fills the palate with expressive red berry and herbal flavors supported by a fine frame of soft tannins and lively acid, finishing long and earthy.

The 2012 Pinot Noir Jerusalem Hill Vineyard was picked October 9-14, and raised for 16 months in 47% new French oak. It has a reserved bouquet with a strong mineral element filtering through the wild strawberry, bay leaf and sea salt notes, changing slightly with aeration, becoming more pastille-like. The palate is medium-bodied with a ferrous opening, a fine line of acidity, hints of cured meat infusing the brambly red fruit with fine structure toward the lightly peppered finish. Very fine.

Domaine Serene’s 2010 Pinot Noir Jerusalem Hill – from the Eola-Amity Hills A.V.A., but not labeled as such – displays forwardly-fruity, Pinot punch character, but with a mouthwateringly savory saline streak along with mossy and toasty, nutty undertones. Seamlessly silken-textured, it caresses and stimulates with seductive persistence. Here is a wine that seems to personify the purity and polish that characterizes the best of Domaine Serene’s Pinots. There may not be many nooks and crannies or a mysterious sort of complexity, but if the moves this makes have been in any way economized, they are nevertheless just sufficient to keep arousing a compulsion to take the next sip. I would anticipate at least 6-8 years of pleasure. The domaine of Ken and Grace Evenstad now incorporates 150 spectacularly-situated and manicured acres of vines in two Dundee sectors – Evenstad Estate and Winery Hill – a steep half mile or so apart; and a larger one – Jerusalem Hill Estate – in the Eola Hills. “The first several years were spent purchasing fruit from local growers and pulling oak stumps” in what had been forest, explains general manager Alan Carter, “so the first vines didn’t go in until 1993” and estate wines did not begin appearing until a decade ago. Ken Wright was Domaine Serene’s founding winemaker; and its latest is Erik Kramer (a former corporate geologist who arrived here last year from Adelsheim), with Joel Myers managing the estate’s vineyards – as well as nearby Two Barns Vineyard in which he is a partner and whose fruit goes exclusively to Domaine Serene. Most estate blocks are subjected at least in optimum vintages to small, separate bottlings, even if sometimes just as winery internal reference points; while the so-called “Evenstad Reserve” bottling constitutes the estate’s flagships and represents an assemblage from annually selected blocks ranging over all three vineyard sites. In the past, most Domaine Serene wines were labeled solely with the broad “Willamette Valley” appellation rather than as “Dundee Hills” or “Eola-Amity Hills,” even though in most instances the latter would have been applicable. Carter notes that this practice allowed them to hedge their bets as to final blends; but the trend now seems to be toward labeling with the more specific A.V.A.s And speaking of hedging ones bets, Kramer notes that “for me as a winemaker, having fruit from lower and higher elevations, they can offset one another depending on the vintage. The Eola-Amity Hills fruit for example can be a bit gamy in aroma but it’s been fruitier the last couple of years because it does really well in cool vintages.” (See my notes below on vintages 2010 versus 2009 of Jerusalem Hill for an apparent case in point.) Chardonnay here is whole-cluster pressed direct to (roughly 30-40% new) barrel, and undergoes full malo-lactic conversion. Pinot Noir is sorted on tables both in the vineyard and “on one of the longest sorting tables I’ve ever seen” (according to Kramer) at the winery. Fruit is destemmed but with plenty of whole berries left intact; generally inoculated; fermentatively extracted via punch-down; pressed soon after dryness; and settled for ten days before going to, on average, half-new barrel. Bottling – for white or red – takes place at 12-16 months, but the estate practices late release, so that most of the 2010 reds I tasted for this report will not be offered before early next year Tel. (866) 864-6555