2010 Ebony Wines Pinot Noir Olenik Vineyard

The Ebony 2010 Pinot Noir Olenik Vineyard – of which there are only 96 cases – is aromatically restrained, but suggests dark berries, smoky black tea, and marine breeze. Dried huckleberry and blueberry make a bittersweet impression on a firm palate with the combination of grape and wood tannins (from 40% new barrels) slightly drying the finish, but a lick of salt helping ameliorate that effect by stimulating the salivary glands. This dense and for now at least graceless Pinot should be monitored carefully if one wants to discover for one’s self whether its tannins diminish or more fully integrate or its character becomes more ingratiating. Chris Mazepink, who made the wines for Shea from 2003-2007; then both segued into the same capacity at Benton Lane, and also started his own label, which incorporates fruit from rock-strewn (ancient flood-deposited) Olenik Vineyard – in a prime Chehalem Mountain location – which he, along with other family members, purchased in 2005 (and whose fruit is sold inter alia to J. Christopher and Patricia Green, to name two wineries whose single-vineyard Olenik bottlings are reviewed in this report). As described in my account of Mazepink’s methodology at Benton Lane, he is not afraid of (what to hear him tell, at least, struck me as) relatively aggressive extraction, and in the case of Ebony wines, 20-25 whole clusters are incorporated. For this project, Mazepink utilizes wooden uprights fermentors and is sprinkling some 500-liter barrels amid the barriques for his elevage. I tasted only two 2010s with Mazepink from Ebony’s portfolio (though I had invited him to bring more wines) and found them almost inscrutably dense and backward. Tel. (503) 939-4155