2018 Cristom Vineyards Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 750 ml

Our members snap up every offer of Cristom Vineyards Pinot Noir, and today, all that action pays off with access—because following this spring’s sell-out, we’ve nabbed one more allocation of this never-before-bottled Pinot Noir from one of the top producers in the country. We’re thrilled that Cristom chose us to debut their 2018 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, and to once again bring this small-production bottling to you at an unprecedented price.

Sourced from Willamette Valley sites that hundreds of winemakers covet and whose single-vineyard bottlings can push triple-digit prices—Abbott Claim, Guadalupe, Brittan, Seven Springs, and Meredith Mitchell among them—the 2018 Willamette Pinot hit the market at $60. We’ve got it at half that, just $30 per bottle.

Knowing the provenance of this Pinot, we couldn’t resist popping the cork as soon as the bottle crossed our transom—and in the glass, it’s exactly what we’ve come to love from Cristom: vibrant, ruby-red Pinot Noir boasting juicy Bing cherry, strawberry, and cranberry, accented with dried fruit, camphor, and laurel. With a streak of mouthwatering acidity and notes of herbs and licorice on the back end, the first-time release shows off the best of the Willamette Valley.

We know our past Cristom buyers well, and most have already bolted for the buy button. The rest of our red wine lovers will surely count themselves as Cristom fans after stocking their cellars with this new smash hit Pinot. Especially at nearly 60% off. 

A deal like this from such a storied producer demands an explanation, so here it is: Cristom’s flagship Mt. Jefferson Cuvée has traditionally been made from estate Pinot Noir, plus grapes sourced from top partner sites all over the Willamette Valley. But the winery’s long-term strategy has been to raise the percentage of estate fruit in Mt. Jefferson, and they’ve done it. Since the 2013 vintage, Cristom has doubled the amount of estate Pinot Noir in their flagship bottling, which now consists entirely of fruit grown in the prestigious volcanic soils of the windy Eola-Amity Hills AVA.

This move toward an estate wine freed up a lot of Cristom’s stellar fruit from elsewhere in the Willamette Valley—Pinot to which the winemaking team of winegrower-owner Tom Gerrie, Steve Doerner, and Daniel Estrin (formally of Littorai) applied their minimalist winemaking approach, which they sum up as “more about the land than the hand.” They crafted a new bottling—one that bears the same signature we expect from a winery that landed on the most recent Wine Spectator Top 100, and has been named a Top 100 winery five times in the last decade by Wine & Spirits magazine.

Needless to say, this allocation will go as fast as all our Cristom offers. We’re more than excited to have it—now have at it!