This wine has a black cherry, cassis, and oak spice-laden nose followed by a dense and full-flavored core of blackberries and cherries. It is a medium-to-full-bodied wine that exhibits impressive layers of well-ripened fruit that might one day make this review appear excessively conservative. Only time will tell if its hard tannins will continue to dominate the wine or melt away.Chehalem is the talk of Oregon. It seemed that everywhere I went people were extolling the qualities of this estate's wines. My tastings of their wines (both the 1995s and 1996s) left me as the odd man out. Generally, I found the wines to be disjointed, dominated by oak, too tannic, and lacking in fruit. Only this one, the 1996 NYSA Vineyard Pinot Noir, merited a rating above this article's 85-point cut-off.Tel. (503) 538-4700.