2015 Panther Creek Lazy River Pinot Yamhill-Carlton Oregon 750 ml

Parker: Most Age Worthy Wines Being Made in Oregon

A Wine Access exclusive—23 cases! This “sharply defined” and “impressive” 2015 Panther Creek Pinot Noir from Lazy River Vineyard earned 93 points and an “Editors’ Choice” pick from Wine Enthusiast. Released at $45, we’re offering it at $29.99/bottle—33% off.

Nine years before the 1994 vintage that set Oregon Pinot ablaze on the world stage, Ken Wright drove to the Willamette Valley with 10 barrels of CALIFORNIA red wine, intent to release it under a new label, Panther Creek. The young Wright was unaware that he’d illegally transported wine across state lines, but faced with the prospect of selling the wine or going broke and going home, Wright convinced a federal agent to let him bottle and sell it all.

In the years that followed, Wright earned a reputation for making the impossible happen again and again. Then, in 1994, he turned every head in the nation towards Oregon, crafting a superb crop of wild-berry Pinots that put the Willamette Valley on the map for good.

Two decades later, Oregon has experienced two historic back-to-back vintages—rated 96 and 95 points by Wine Spectator respectively. And this time, it was Tony Rynders at the helm of Panther Creek. A longtime friend of Wright’s, Rynders had dreamed of working at Panther Creek since that legendary 1994 vintage. After 20 years working at some of the best wineries in Oregon, including a decade at Domaine Serene (where he would turn out a record number of high-scoring wines), Rynders finally got the job he’d been waiting for. The 2014 release was his first vintage, and this 2015 Panther Creek Pinot Noir from Lazy River Vineyard in Oregon’s Yamhill-Carlton AVA is his second effort—polished, sexy, and showing the generous warmth of the 2015 vintage through sumptuous earthy notes, ripe black cherry, boysenberry, and complex Indian spices tinged with cocoa, vanilla, and cedar.

At the Lazy River Vineyard, on the steep south-facing slope of Mt. Richmond in the Willamette’s Yamhill-Carlton sub-appellation, Rynders meticulously tended Pinot Noir planted on Jory soils. The phenomenal 2015 growing season largely mirrored 2014, with one major exception—above-average temperatures in the spring allowed for early bloom and exceptional fruit-set, which led to an early harvest overall. Wine Spectator reported that “there’s no precedent for a vintage exactly like this in Oregon.”

As Robert Parker has advised, “Panther Creek wines are Oregon’s most beautifully packaged and also the most concentrated and age worthy wines now being made in Oregon”—never more so than with today’s 2015 Lazy River Vineyard Pinot Noir.