2022 Flaneur Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 750 ml

As winemaker at Beaux-Frères—one of Oregon’s best-known Pinot houses—Grant Coulter made Wine Spectator’s #3 wine of 2016, the $90 2014 Pinot Noir Beaux-Frères Vineyard. 

Flâneur Wines scored a coup when they recruited Grant away, and they’re on a tear today thanks to him. He has an uncanny ability to coax succulent, sweet fruit out of the grapes and put it in the glass, and his 2022 Flâneur Pinot Noir teems with notes of black raspberries, red roses, cherry cola, and leather. It’s juicy and giving in the mouth, with pungent red berry fruit.

This wine reminds us of everything we love about Oregon Pinot, and we wouldn’t hesitate to pour it for the person who has never tasted Oregon Pinot Noir before. It’s round and complete, perfectly balanced, just dynamite!

Flâneur Wines was launched in 2012 by Marty Doerschlag, an ex-CFO turned winegrower. He traded in the corporate world to celebrate the flâneur: one who wanders without aim, simply taking in and enjoying the world around him.

Marty’s vineyard sources for this wine are the Flânerie estate vineyard on Ribbon Ridge, planted in 2003, and an additional estate vineyard in the Chehalem Mountains called La Belle Promenade. Flânerie’s sedimentary soils provide the wine’s sweet black fruit, whereas La Belle Promenade’s volcanic soils provide high-toned floral notes. In Grant’s hands, these excellent raw materials make for a memorable wine.

We love reaching for a nice cool, fruit-driven bottle of Pinot Noir when it’s hot out and we’ve got a spatchcocked chicken on the grill. The 2022 Flâneur will hit the spot, and we hope you love it too.