2022 Lange Winery Pinot Noir Reserve Willamette Valley 750 ml

When we visited Jesse Lange, we asked him how his Reserve Pinot Noir managed to be so good, year after year.

“We take eight months to put the blend together.”

We’ve sat for some extensive blending trials. But fine-tuning a blend over that much time reveals a nearly unheard-of attention to detail. Although, given the man behind the bottle, we shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Lange, an obsessive farmer, calls all the shots on when to pick. He also tracks the fruit to the crush pad, and he has a preternatural knowledge of what’s in his cellar. “We can barrel-taste 400 Pinot Noir barrels, and I can tell you the provenance of every one: fermentation, harvest data, soil type, clone…” He went on, naming about a dozen other categories that make up what he calls each barrel’s “dossier.”

With the Reserve, Lange has ultimate freedom. The only goal is to capture the essence of Jesse’s phenomenal vineyard sources, plus the character of each Willamette Valley vintage—and the 2022 growing season was an Oregon classic.

The year started off with near-disaster: a freak, late frost decimated the vineyards across the northern Willamette Valley, forcing vines to grow shoots from new buds and setting the growing season back by weeks. But a warm summer and flawless fall meant that winemakers were able to harvest gorgeous Pinot clusters deep into October—an old-school harvest date with the benefit of modern enological and viticultural knowledge. 

Lange’s Reserve boasts fruit from Freedom Hill and the Lange estate vineyards in Dundee Hills, both of which go into the label’s $75–$80 single-vineyard Pinots. A slew of other outstanding sites—including Durant, Yamhill, and Madrona Hill—round out the supply.