WWD: Erath Vineyards

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We’re trying to decide which wine to have with our steak dinner tonight. (WWD means wine with dinner, if you’re a new reader of this blog. And welcome!)

We brought home two fabulous bottles of Pinots from our December visit to the tasting room of Erath Vineyards, southwest of Portland. I hope that by writing about both of them, the choice will become easier.

Erath’s 2005 Pinot Noir Prince Hill is a very limited selection from the vineyard’s Prince Hill reserve block. Owner and Oregon wine pioneer Dick Erath lives above the Prince Hill Vineyard, where the first Pinot Noir vines were planted in 1983. The ten best barrels were chosen for this single vineyard bottling.

Erath’s 2005 Pinot Noir Leland is from the four-acre Leland Vineyard–Erath has contracted Leland’s entire Pinot Noir crop since 1987.

Pinot Noir Prince Hill has rich, weighty and firm tannins while Pinot Noir Leland’s tannins finish soft, smooth and supple. Prince Hill is powerful and elegant with hints of marionberry. Leland also is powerful  and intense, with aromas of black cherry and a dark fruit finish.

No wonder why we can’t make up our minds!

Both wines can be opened in 2008 or cellared through 2018. And it is indeed 2008! Maybe we’ll drink both tonight?

Cheers!

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About Margot

Margot has been writing about wine since 1997 at KOIN-TV in Portland, Oregon; ten years later, she created this blog. Write for Wine focuses on the fine wines of Washington state, with additional posts about Oregon, B.C., California, ANZ, France, Italy, Spain and more. A former national journalist in Canada and the U.S., Margot has been a Washington wine enthusiast since moving to Seattle in 1999. Her motto: “It’s wine o’clock somewhere.”