Chapter 24 Last Chapter Pinot Noir 2012
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Wine & Spirits
"The Last Chapter" is the tête de cuvée from Chapter 24, a project between Mark Tarlov and Louis Michel Liger-Belair, with Mikey Etzel making the wine. From multiple vineyard sources representing both volcanic and sedimentary soils, this wine’s initial scents of ripe black cherry and plum hint at the palate’s potential richness. And yet the wine isn’t so much rich as mouthfilling. A saturating and delicious presence that mimics richness, this bursts with exuberant fruit on the finish, then quietly recedes. This wine feels in every sense complete — calm and placid, with a succulence gently occupying every corner of the mouth.
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Wine Spectator
This ripe red dances deftly over refined tannins to deliver currant and blackberry fruit in spades, glinting with hot stone and meat notes as the finish lingers. Drink now through 2022. 824 cases made.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Last Chapter comes from two sedimentary and two volcanic sites that are selected by Louis-Michel Liger-Belair conducting a blind tasting of different parcels. Matured in 75% new oak, the wood is neatly carried by the well-defined dark cherry, briary and sous-bois bouquet that feels very natural. The palate is medium-bodied and here, unlike the aromatics, the wood comes through quite strongly and layers mocha notes across the black plum and raspberry fruit, slightly obfuscating the nuances underneath. This is a delicious Pinot Noir, but I actually have a preference for the "The Fire" '12 in this vintage.
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Utilizing the proprietary infusion technique of consulting Burgundian winemaker Louis-Michel Liger-Belair, Chapter 24’s winemaking is more akin to steeping rather than an aggressive extraction process. This does not mean they have reinvented the wheel or discovered some form of secret winemaking technique that hasn’t already been used in Oregon. What they have done, however, is brought together a number of variables which, on their own, don’t contribute great changes, but as a whole, markedly change the direction of a wine’s final destination to more closely resemble the structure of beloved Pinot Noirs. That is, Pinot Noir elegantly crafted for immediate enjoyment, without negating its ability to age impeccably.
Chapter 24 Vineyards was named after the last chapter of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. This particular chapter was added long after Homer died. The Greeks continued the tale to satisfy themselves despite the author thinking he was finished after Chapter 23. The mark of a great ending is not what it says about the past, but rather what it promises for the future, and Chapter 23 clearly raised more questions than it answered. In this same spirit, the story of Chapter 24’s wines continues well past the cellar door. Winemaking is just the beginning of the story. The wine may be finished but it is not the end.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.