Martin Woods
- 200-400 Cases Micro Lots from Cool Sites
- Burgundian in Approach
- A Focus on the Specific Terroir of Each Site
- Stunning Levels of Precision
- Not Trying to Please the Average American Palate AT ALL
- They all lasted 6 days OPEN
AIR THESE WINES OUT - TRUST ME
"After 2-3 hours it drinks like Volnay"
Very Happy Client With a Very Good Palate
2018 Martin Woods Pinot Noir "Jessie James Vineyard"
- Like the Dense Volnays of Former Fass Star Thomas Bouley
- Nose: Incredibly Precise Aromas
- Spice, Soppy Mid Season Cherries
- Superb Earthiness and Startling Minerality
- Very Burgundian Balance Between Fruit, Minerality
- Palate: Terrific Tiny Berry / Cherry Fruit Intensity
- Elegant with Superb Structure
- On Day 2 and 3 - Mindblowing
- Deep Black and Red Cherries, Plum, Spice on the Nose
- Palate: Tangy, Dense, Sweet
- Structured with Massive Dark Black Cherry
- Intense Minerality
- Will Last 30+ Years
2018 Martin Woods Gamay Noir- Nose: Elegant yet Intense Mid Season Cherry Fruit
- As This Opens, Floral, So Many Roses
- Tons of Earth and Herbals.
- Big Expressive Mid Season Cherry.
- Intense Cherry Flower
- Palate: More Côte de Brouilly than Fleurie
- Ridiculous Tiny Berry Fruit Intensity
"I'm making wines for the geeks, the people in the trade, the winemakers, the people who love, appreciate and really get wine." Evan Martin
Today is an offer that is technically 7.5 years in the making as the saying goes but it actually happened pretty quickly in an 8 week span.Why These Wines Fit Our House Style
These wines fit exactly into the Fass Selections style like some of our best estates in France and Germany. The difference is where they come from. They come from Oregon. I'm not selling this because it's American wine - I'm selling this because it's spectacular, underpriced wine that fits our house style to a T.
- Fresh wines of place. The vineyard, the place is special.
- Terrific fruit but never vulgar, always infused with lots of mineral and earth
- Terrific acids
- Always balanced and exceptionally pure
- Restrained wood when it is there.
- We also love wines that almost all improve open in the bottle for 2-3 days.
That's the Fass Selections style.
The Back Story
A great customer who e-mailed me one day and said I have an Oregon producer that would be perfect for
I knew after that conversation that when I tasted the wines he was going to send me they were going to be special. Focused is the word I'd use to describe him. He has an almost zen-like focus on his craft plus an encyclopedic knowledge and memory. His recall of all the decisions about a wine through the entire cycle of vineyard growth and cellar management was eidetic.
The guy is uncompromising and he has a vision. He's worked at some of the top estates in Oregon including Bergstsom, Belle Pente and Beaux Freres.
The Style
I have never had anything like these wines. Never before. So many things about them were unique and I'll be writing about them in today's offer and future offers. Martin Woods is a Pinot Noir specialist and is making 200-400 cases of these micro lots of single vineyard Pinots from cool sites. These have cool climate Pinot Noir written all over them in a large sharpie. It's unmistakable.
The most amazing thing about the Pinot Noirs is that Evan told me to keep the wines open for 5-6-7 days and they would greatly improve. I find it can be good for you to drink Pinot Noir over 3 days (red burgs and German Pinot) but even on 75% day 3 is pushing it. So I filed it but was still going to do it as a winemaker knows more about his wines than anyone else. He was 100% correct and his Pinots only improved day after day after day. They all lasted 6 days and on day 7 something was lost a little. For me, for most of them days 3-5 really were when these wines excelled. I had today's wine go from a 9.3 when opened to a 9.5 on day 6. This suggests an aging curve of 25-30 years. And I will 100% day these have to be the some of the longest aging Pinots in America. You will all see.
That makes these just some of the most exceptional value Pinot Noir we sell. I would buy a case of this wine today and just keep on checking in on it every 5 years or so. The evolution will be legendary. I still cannot get over that these wines improved this much over this long period of time. Gaining more fruit, more velvety tannins soaked with fruit, while always gaining more mineral and earth tones. But the fruit, once fully realized is extraordinary. If there is one estate in our German portfolio they remind me of it is Ziereisen. But the terroir is obviously different than what they have over at Ziereisen. But they both make, dense, structured, spectacularly fruited, incredibly ageable and elegant Pinot Noirs. The restraint in the Martin Woods Pinots is ridiculous as well. All the fruit is presented so neatly while showing a beautiful sense of place. These are journey wines and every wine he sent me I'm going to offer over the coming months. Besides Pinot he makes small amounts of Gamay/Cabernet Franc which are just lights out. Plus a brilliant Riesling "Grosses Gewachs" and a Smargad level Gruner Veltliner. But I had to start with the Jessie James as it's one of the most profound Pinot Noirs I've ever tasted from America. I had no idea Pinot could be this good in America, and specifically Oregon.
The Wines
The 2018 Martin Woods Pinot Noir "Jessie James Vineyard" for $44.99 a bottle on a 4-pack is an extraordinary wine and an extraordinary value. It's also the best domestic Pinot Noir I've ever had. This wine is a slow burn.
It's 24 year old vines and is from two Pinot clones. The famous Pommard clone which gives depth of fruit and a Swiss clone that is very important in Oregon as it gives energy and freshness. The vineyard has been organic since 2015. The wine is amazingly dense and that's because it yields very small berries with thick skins which is the holy grail for Pinot Noir. It is co-farmed with Beaux Freres. The soils are volcanic and which really give this wine tremendous distinction. Vineyard looks like Burgundy and this is sourced from mid slope which is the key. This wine is a slow burn and I think it's best to open 24 hours in advance.
On open, the nose is reticent but very promising. The aromas are so precise. Spice, soppy mid season cherries, smoke and really smells like the volcanic soil it comes from. Superb earthiness and startling minerality. It's so transparent in a Burgundian way but only because the earth and mineral are just as important as the fruit and spice aromas. the After 10 minutes this nose really gets going. Love the nose. Reeks of terroir.
Palate has terrific tiny berry/cherry fruit intensity. It's tightly wound and super focused on day 1. Elegant with superb structure and so ultra refined. Intense and very young. This needs mega air but has length, a nice hit of opulence and great freshness. A very serious wine. Huge tannins and structure and what sap. Grand Cru all the way. I gave this a 9.3 on Delectable initially. After air (7-9 hours) the fruit gets deeper, sappier, more vivid and sweet. The finish extends and extends to profound levels. After 10 hours open my score went up to 9.4.
Then on Day 2 and 3 it became mindblowing. This is the biggest and beastliest of all of Evan's single vineyard Pinots. An absolutely epic and prodigious wine. Nose is deep black and red cherries with plum, spice, such a sense of deepness. Tangy, dense, sweet and structured with massive dark black cherry fruit and intense minerality. So deep and so resonant. Very fresh. Very ling. My score finally settled at a 9.5 after 4 days.
Here is my Note also from December 30th, 2020.
This is such a ridiculous wine. Nose is so high toned and also luxurious. Beautiful herbals, high toned sour cherry, cherry flower and mid season cherry. Floral, some terrific spice. This has greatly improved on PNP aromatically at this point. Gorgeous, clear, precise and super focused nose. Just the most stunning complex spices imaginable. Really impressed. Palate is tight as expected but it's like 10% more open than it was earlier this year. But it is all there perfect harmony. Amazing fruit and density yet elegant and light on its feet. Big, noble tannins, so so precise and fine with just unreal clear and focused cherry fruit of the mid season and sour kind. Needs mega air but man will this go places. I'll be back. As this slowly opens the fruit sweetens. The nose gets more floral and much more harmonious. Awesome inner mouth aromas and terrific spice and energy. Now we are taking.
This is a wine that will last 30+ years and is as good as it gets for domestic Pinot. Aren't you curious what an Oregon Fass Selections' Pinot Noir will taste like after all this German and French stuff? You will not be disappointed.
The next wine is the 2018 Martin Woods Gamay Noir. Yes. Gamay. It is $29.99 a bottle on a 4-pack.
The headline is, "If Hanspeter Ziereisen made Gamay in the great old vine Godefroy vineyard of Chateau Thivin." That's what it reminds me of. Yup. This wine is as serious and joyful a Gamay I've ever sold. I don't need to sell Gamay from Oregon but after tasting this profound wine I had no choice. Vinous will eventually do a piece on "The Other Oregon" where Evan's Riesling, Gamay, Gruner and Cabernet Franc will be receiving high ratings.
The Vineyards
Half of this wine is sourced from a brand new 6 month old AVA called "Tualatin Hills"(The Tualatin Hills AVA is the northern most location within the Willamette Valley) and the other half is from the great Havlin vineyard in the Van Duzer corridor. The Tulatin Hills fruit brings very pretty delicate aromatics, deep red fruit, and a light texture with lifted red fruits and spice. These are 15 year old vines. The soils have massive quartz deposits that are bigger than anything in the Williamette Valley. The other half is from the Havlin Vineyard in the Van Duzer Corridor. Sediment soil that is exceptionally well drained. Vines are stressed. Like mega stressed. Like me during shipping season. The clusters are 75% smaller than normal Gamay. Pinot sized berries. Massively thick skins. This gives the wine tons of textural muscle, concentration and depth. Huge aromas and a beefy texture.
When you combine both of these terroirs you get a complete and masterful and very serious Gamay.
The Nose. Very pretty and very serious nose of elegant yet intense mid season cherry fruit. Lots of earth and very complex. Lots of aromas to unfurl. Very very deep and layered. After 5-6 hours of air the nose is has superb smokey complexity. It's also more gamey, more feral. On day 2 it is more floral and has deeper fruit. So many roses, such pretty aromas with tons of earth and herbals. Big expressive mid season cherry. Also intense Cherry flower.
What a palate. More Côte de Brouilly than Fleurie. It's a beast. Such sappy fruit and ridiculous tiny berry fruit intensity. Long, grippy and sappy. Wow, really long. Deep, layered and long with terrific structure. Amazingly pure cherry fruit that is perfectly ripe and fresh. Really terrific freshness here. Impressive inner mouth florals and a deep structure to age many years and it needs maybe 3-4. Very impressive. Balance on this is extraordinary. What a wine. On day, 2, the palate has sap and energy with more even more clear and vivid fruit. Long and super juicy. Terrific structure. Dynamite. This is awesome today with a healthy decant but was better on Day 2 which suggests a long life.
I have zero hesitation in saying this can age 15+ years and needs 3-4 years in the cellar. One of the most revelatory wines of the year for me.
2018 Martin Woods Pinot Noir "Jessie James Vineyard" - $46.99
($179.96 4-pack)
2018 Martin Woods Gamay Noir - $31.99 ($119.96 4-pack)
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