Wine & Spirits - Fall 2022 - 42

Top 100 Wineries
OREGON | WILLAMETTE VALLEY
Nicolas-Jay
As Jean-Nicolas Méo adapts to Oregon's fruit character, this FrenchAmerican
collaboration is hitting its stride with wines of notable finesse.
JEAN-NICOLAS MEO
FOUNDED:
2014
WINEMAKERS:
Jean-Nicolas Méo and
Tracy Kendall
VITICULTURISTS:
Jay Boberg,
Jean-Nicolas Méo
and Tracy Kendall
OWNERS:
Jay Boberg and
Jean-Nicolas Méo
ACRES OWNED:
83; 21 planted
ANNUAL PRODUCTION:
3,500-5,000 cases
ESTATE GROWN:
40%
FARMING PRACTICES:
Organic
42
2018 Willamette Valley L'Ensemble Pinot
Noir ($75, 94 points) This is a wine that seems
to play to Méo's strengths, blending a flavorful
pinot that remains poised and graceful, bringing
together lots from five appellations. Set in a
foresty frame, it smells of mulled berries, concentrated,
focused and pure, the richness reined
in-a French take on New World fruit flavors.
2019 Willamette Valley Own-Rooted Pinot
Noir ($90, 94 points) This blend showcases
older Willamette Valley sites including Nysa and
the Bishop Creek estate vineyard. The predominance
of the Pommard clone in these plantings
shapes the feel of the wine, a quiet and reserved
pinot noir with savory scents of cedar and rose
petal and a firm, fleshy texture.
WINE & SPIR IT S
BUYING GUIDE 2021
JAy bobErg, A muSic ExEcutivE from loS
Angeles, teamed with Jean-Nicolas Méo, of
Domaine Méo-Camuzet in Vosne-Romanée,
to launch this Willamette project in 2014.
They leased winery space and prepared to
build their own cellars in Newberg, but when
the pandemic hit, plans were stymied: Méo's
travel was restricted from France; Boberg's
was limited as well; for long periods their
resident winemaker, Tracy Kendall, held
down the fort. They worked through quarantines,
travel bans, mandates, fires and heat
domes, overseeing the completion of the
facility in time for the 2021 harvest. Now,
Méo can travel again, and he's helping Kendall
build the latest releases from contracted
fruit and their Bishop Creek estate vineyard,
an older Yamhill-Carlton planting farmed
organically. Méo tastes wines throughout
the year, often via post, saying it's useful to
taste the wines out of context, and to have
his Burgundy team contribute opinions.
Comparisons with Burgundy are inevitable
but, for Méo, the biggest difference is acid
structure, which he's been seeking to alter
in his Oregon cellar by delaying the onset of
malolactic fermentations. He believes that
slow-down leads to more harmony and better
integration of the tannins. -P.J.C.
2019 Yamhill-Carlton District Bishop Creek
Vineyard Chardonnay ($75, 94 points) Méo's
skills with chardonnay are on full display here,
in a wine with structure and grace in equal measure.
With scents of lemon, finger lime, and a
lacy hint of lees, the flavors deepen and broaden
toward apple and hints of French flan. All of this
comes in a package that's balanced and light,
with a finesse that suggests a long life.
CALIFORNIA | SONOMA COUNTY
Radio-Coteau
Fragrant, grounded wines that speak of thoughtful
farming and far-coast sites.
ERIC SUSSMAN
A wAlk through Eric SuSSmAn'S biodynamic
farm on Harrison Grade is a journey
through time. In the barn sits a squat
century-old redwood vat stained by zinfandel.
Up the slope, the last vines planted
by the Morelli family date to the year after
World War II. The apple trees, the chickens,
rows of vegetables, the goats all cohabitate
in the present. There's something equally
timeless about the wines that grow here;
California wine historian Charles Sullivan
believes there were wine grapes planted on
the Morelli property (now Lemorel Estate)
in 1892-90 acres by 1909. Sussman came
long after, at first buying the zinfandel fruit
from Robert von Weidlich in 2002, and later
the property in 2012, adding syrah and pinot
noir vines, and gaining biodynamic certification
in 2018. He makes his wines at a facility
northwest of Sebastopol-also certified
biodynamic-not far from other vineyards,
like Dierke, that supply him with organically
grown fruit. Sussman farms on a human
scale producing wines that speak of the
herbs and the flowers as much as the fruit
that grows close to the Pacific coast. -J.G.
2018 Sonoma Coast Lemorel Estate Zinfandel
($64, 92 points) One of the most consistently
beautiful zinfandels in Sonoma County,
distinctive for its far-coast site, every release
we've tasted of this wine since Sussman purchased
Lemorel has proved exceptional. In
2018, his two parcels of old vines produced a
brisk, blueberry-scented wine with high-toned
scents of summer blooms. Its cool tannins feel
like chipped stone. If you collect California reds,
Lemorel should be among them.
FOUNDED:
2002
OWNER/WINEMAKER/
VITICULTURIST:
Eric Sussman
ACRES OWNED:
22
ANNUAL PRODUCTION:
4,000 cases
ESTATE GROWN:
50%
FARMING PRACTICES:
Biodynamic, certified
by Demeter (2018)
2018 Sonoma Coast Dusty Lane Syrah ($68,
92 points) John Dierke farms the property his
grandfather purchased in 1947 west of Sebastopol,
where the hills include forests and salmon
creeks as well as a south-facing parcel of syrah,
certified organic. Sussman captures the floral
aspects of that fruit along with the dynamic mineral
spice in this tightly focused red.
2019 Anderson Valley Savoy Pinot Noir ($68,
95 points) Organically farmed by Cliff Lede, this
vineyard includes a parcel with three clones-
Martini, 115 and Pommard-whose fruit produces
a wine showing the spice of plump rosehips,
the richness of fresh figs, the lasting scent
of a coastal redwood forest. Meaty and ripe, this
has direction and a tight focus, delicious now if
you decant it for any dark-meat game birds.
Wine & Spirits - Fall 2022

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