BEN'S PICK: DAZZLING 92-POINT KEN WRIGHT OREGON PINOTBen Giliberti, CW Director of Wine Education
What’s remarkable is that despite the price difference, the 2023 Willamette has the same exotically spicy, luxuriously refined (and strikingly Volnay-like) goodness of Ken's single-vineyard bottlings. It's lush and full of pure Pinot fruit, reflecting that it's a blend of grapes from Ken's best single-vineyard sites. The principal difference is that it is made in a more fruit-forward, less overtly tannic, and more approachable style. That means it is perfect for enjoying now—just in time for Thanksgiving and the holiday dinners and parties ahead. |
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Tasting Notes |
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Pinot Pioneer  Lexington, Kentucky—a place better known for bourbon and basketball than wine—was hardly fertile ground for an aspiring oenophile. Yet, fate has a sense of humor. Ken Wright, a broke pre-law college student moonlighting as a waiter, found himself scolded for his abysmal wine sales. His defense? "I've never tasted the stuff!" The owner, conceding the logic, relented. Once a week, Ken and his fellow staffers sampled a new region, working their way through the cellar. For Wright, it was an epiphany, the kind that makes a man ditch pre-law and swap courtrooms for vineyards.Wright did what any self-respecting oenophile would do: he hightailed it out of Kentucky and headed to California. But Wright wasn't content to be just another enology student debating the merits of this or that technique. He wanted to be on the front lines, and by 1978, he found himself at Chalone Vineyards, rubbing elbows with pioneers Dick Graff, the founder of Chalone, and Dick's friends; Josh Jensen, Rich Sanford, and Steve Kistler. From them, he learned an important truth: the difference between good and great wine is often just the audacity to try something new—and occasionally to ignore how others were running their business. By the mid-1980s, Wright had a stable career making respectable California wines for respectable people. But “stable” wasn't in his DNA. Oregon, with its cool climate and a ragtag band of vintners, beckoned. The Willamette Valley promised a clean slate and, more importantly, Pinot Noir—the grape Wright likens to an operatic diva: temperamental, high-maintenance, but capable of brilliance when handled just so. In Willamette, Wright found his inner Billy Beane: not statistics—Dirt. But not just any dirt. His first breakthrough was recognizing something the Oregon establishment had chosen to ignore: Willamette Valley is not a single place or a single terroir. It's a geological buffet of volcanic soils and ancient marine sediments, each offering distinct flavors. "Pinot Noir is a blank canvas," he explains. "The soil is the artist. I'm just the guy handing out brushes." Wright’s next eureka moment involved a microscope—a tool few winemakers thought to wield. The microscope revealed the vibrant populations of microbial life that exist throughout the soil profile. "What the other guys were doing was killing those little guys," he said, "I told my team we need to feed 'em." The myriad populations of microorganisms provide the vine with needed minerals from the soil, which give volume to the expressions of aroma and flavor by the fruit and, ultimately, the resulting wine. Ken calls this nutritionally based farming, a hands-on approach that analyzes the nutritional status of soils and plants. "We regularly take deep samples of the soil and vine root interface to determine the health of the microbial populations," he explained. "With the information from these analyses, we can tailor our farming approach to achieve balanced nutrition at each of our vineyard sites." Of course, even Wright isn't immune to the occasional bout of hyperbole. "Pinot Noir is the ultimate grape," he declares. "It's fragile, finicky, and capable of transcendence. Kind of like life," he laughs. But the point stands: For Wright, Pinot Noir isn’t just wine—it’s life in a glass. |
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Ben Giliberti served as wine columnist for The Washington Post for over two decades, beginning in the early 1980s. His articles on food, wine, and travel have appeared in Wine Spectator, Travel & Leisure, Cigar Aficionado, United Airlines Flyer, Food & Wine, Decanter, The LA Times, Newsday, Wine News, and other publications. His career in journalism began as a sports commentator for WYBC FM (Yale Broadcasting Company).
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