2012 Foris Pinot Noir Rogue Valley 750 ml

A 20-Acre Handshake in Rogue Valley

There’s ample consensus in calling Ted Gerber’s Foris Pinot Noir the greatest bargain in Oregon. If you don’t trust us, ask Robert Parker or the world’s top Burgundy expert, Stephen Tanzer. But today, we’re going to make a broader and bolder case, suggesting that this juicy, cherry cola Pinot Noir from Oregon’s “100-point vintage” is the most compelling $15.99 bargain in America.

In 1971, two years after he first began stomping grapes in his home winemaking garage in Gilroy, Ted Gerber decided it was time to look for vineyard land on California’s Central Coast. It wouldn’t take Ted long to figure out that most of his assets were tied up in a 1968 VW Bus with 106,000 miles on the odometer … and that it was unlikely that those four wheels would cover grape-growing costs in the Golden State.

One night, over a couple of 6-packs, he shared his frustration with his friend, Jon Rafanella. Rafanella, as always, called it as he saw it. “They say if you have a strong back and a few nickels, you can make a go of it in Oregon. Not sure about the nickels, but your lats seem plenty strong.” A few weeks later, Gerber packed up the bus and headed north.

Ted drove the bus from Gilroy to Portland, Oregon, then west to the Willamette Valley. A few guys there, like David Lett at Eyrie and Dick Erath at Erath, had already hung out winemaking shingles. “I came from Gilroy where the sun shines every day, and I took one look at the Willamette Valley in May and wondered how anyone thought they could ripen Pinot Noir there. So I pushed south in the rain. Eugene seemed a little more reliable, but not reliable enough. So I kept on backtracking towards California. When I stopped here, saw the high elevation, felt the hot sun in the afternoon then the chill at night, the bus had 108,000 miles on it. I decided it was time to give it a rest.”

“Here” was the Rogue Valley, one of the most beautiful spots in the Pacific Northwest. Set at 1,600 feet above sea level just 40 miles from the coast, the winter is cold but somehow, spring never comes. Summer days are hot. Nights are chilly. Ted only had one suit and it needed pressing. A few days later, he passed by the dry cleaner and arrived at the bank better dressed than he’d been in years. In today’s world, that banker would have laughed Gerber all the way back to Gilroy. But in the 1970s, when loans were made based on a stern look in the eye and a handshake, Ted Gerber walked out with enough to buy and plant 20 acres of Pinot Noir.

He started on the high ground, working most of the land himself. By 1984, Ted told us, “It suddenly occurred to me that this might really work!” Unlike up north, where growers continued to struggle to bring Pinot Noir to full maturity, down here he had to be careful to fend off over-ripeness. Little by little, Gerber tweaked his farming practices, tailoring leaf canopies to shade the clusters from the hot afternoon sun, even installing ingenious synthetic fog systems to refresh the vines in the hottest years.

Gerber bought more land, planting more Pinot Noir. Quietly, always in the shadow of the “boys up north,” Ted began putting out rich, juicy Pinot Noirs, infused with Sonoma Coast concentration, buttressed by riveting, cold-night acidity. After almost 40 years of bootstrapping, Gerber had miraculously catapulted a 20-acre handshake into one of the more daring Pinot Noir estates on the coast.

In what Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar would call “a vintage for the record books,” bud-break came late in Oregon. The spring was unusually dry, followed by a warm June and July, making for tight-fisted clusters strewn with tiny berries of high skin-to-juice content. While sunshine bathed Gerber’s Rogue Valley vineyards, there were no significant heat spikes, allowing the small berries to reach extraordinary physiological maturity without any sign of desiccation. Ted made his call to harvest under perfect conditions. Sugars were as high as in 2009, even as acids remained firm.

The 2012 Foris Pinot Noir is ruby-red in color. Rich and juicy on the attack, with aromas of black cherry, cola, and black raspberry. Sweet, ripe, and weighty, filled with red fruit and cherry preserves. Despite all the 2012 concentration, finishing with just enough acid backbone to keep everything in check. Drink now for its youthful hedonism or lay down until 2019.

$22 on release. Just $15.99 this morning on cases. 150 are up for grabs. Sorry… in advance.