Lot 942 2022 Oregon Pinot Noir
Sometimes, there’s never enough of a good thing—like Oregon Pinot Noir.
In 2022, we ventured into Oregon to taste grapes from a dynamic winery that sources fruit from the Willamette Valley, Applegate, and Illinois Valleys in Southern Oregon. The 2022 growing season was spectacular—a cooler year until the end of harvest when things warmed up to aid ripening. The wines are perfumed and balanced by Oregon’s hallmark zippy natural acidity. We went back into the Cameron Hughes Wine cellar to taste through barrels of our Oregon Pinot Noirs from the 2022 harvest—all lots from the Willamette Valley—and emerged with a new blend of our favorite-tasting Lots.
Lot 942 2022 Oregon Pinot Noir is a top barrel selection of the base wine we used to make Lot 909, we like to call it a sister wine. If you’re a fan of Lot 909, you’ll love this even more. It’s a silky, satiny, zippy, zingy, coiled-up Pinot Noir that could pass for a red Burgundy, but bears the unmistakable ripeness of Willamette’s maritime climate, which enjoys dry summers with ample rays of grape-ripening sunshine. It has the refreshing, balanced, light to medium-bodied hallmarks you told us you love in Oregon-grown grapes. Maybe we should just call this a slice of Pinot Noir sunshine in a glass. Pair it with slices of your favorite pizza and slivers of hard cheese and thank us later!
Watch as Katy Long, Director of International Wines for VWE walks us through a tasting of this Oregon Pinot Noir.
Tasting Video Highlights:
- 00:00 Intro
- 00:12 Lot 942 Info
- 00:22 The Color
- 00:39 On the Nose
- 00:56 The Taste
- 01:33 How to Enjoy
Video Transcript:
Katy Long says:
Hi, I’m Katy Long and welcome back to the CH Wine tasting room. We have a fun wine today. This is an Oregon Pinot Noir light. Lot 942 is a 2022 Southern Oregon Pinot Noir. So this vintage is known for having a little bit less color. And Pinot Noir is already a thin-skinned grape. But look at that.Just a very pale ruby, almost a hint of garnishing at the edge. Very little color in the core. It’s a pretty looking wine, though. The aromas are just juicy red berries. There’s a bit of earthiness and minerality in this glass and an unmistakable baking spice. It almost feels a bit like fall. Oh, so this wine is just nice and light.
Let’s give it a taste. Mm.
That is a quintessential Pinot Noir for you. Light-bodied, fresh, juicy red berries that Minerality carries through. It’s almost like a dusty earth, but that baking spice is just right at the top. Framed in a little bit of oak. This is easy drinking, super fun sipping wine. This is the kind of wine you’re going to drink. Come home from work, take your shoes off and pour yourself a glass of this while you’re figuring out what you’re going to make for dinner.
This is the kind of wine that can transition from day to night. This Pinot Noir is going to be a lot of fun. I invite you to open a bottle, pour yourself a glass and kick back and enjoy. And until then, cheers.
Lot 909 2022 Oregon Pinot Noir
An Oregon Pinot Noir that is refreshing and balanced, light to medium-bodied.
It’s always good to be reminded of why certain regions are ideal for growing certain grapes. Lot 909 2022 Oregon Pinot Noir offers a definitive reminder for why Pinot Noir is like the horse to Willamatte Valley’s carriage (they go together like a—you know the song). The dynamic source winery for this Pinot also blended in grapes from the Applegate and Illinois Valleys in Southern Oregon. And that, dear friends, is the secret sauce to this bright, irresistible, Pinot Noir.
Named for the Illinois River, the Illinois Valley, is home to the oldest vineyard in southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley AVA, and its high-elevation sandy, silty, gravely soils rife with ancient glacial deposits give vines a struggle for life, which, in this case, translates to Pinot Noir elegance. Meanwhile, grapes growing in Applegate Valley—a high-elevation, stunning mountainous region—benefit from warm days and cold nights and contribute a plush, juicy quality to Lot 909.
We’ve got a ‘wow’ factor going on in this refreshing and balanced, light to medium-bodied Oregon Pinot Noir, which is officially our favorite new cocktail-hour wine. Showcasing rich, juicy cherry and cranberry fruit, smoky clove, elegant brown baking spices, conifer, and earth, all hallmarks of Pinot grown in the Pacific Northwest. Add to that vivid blood orange acid tension, and at 13% alcohol, you’ll be reaching for a second bottle before that roast chicken is done roasting.
Watch as Katy Long, Director of International Wines for VWE walks us through a tasting of Lot 909.
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