While, as Soles repeatedly emphasizes, his parameters are flexible, at around two-thirds Pinot; fermented the first time in a mixture of barrel and tank; with a foundation of fruit from Knudsen Vineyard in the Dundee Hills; and having spent three years sur latte, Argyle’s 2008 Brut is pretty typical of the estate’s basic blend. Ripe apple, pear and grapefruit garlanded with honeysuckle make for a fetching nose and luscious, silken, palate that perfectly integrates ten or a dozen grams of residual sugar, finishing with effusive fruit; hints of honey and marzipan balanced by a bite of pink grapefruit rind; lovely underlying nutty piquancy; and sheer next sip-inducing savor.
Specializing in sparkling wine since its 1987 inception, Argyle has gone from strength to strength in that department under the direction of founding winemaker Rollin Soles (who trained originally as a microbiologist). The program here also incorporates a vast array of (by local standards) relatively high-volume still wines. Already large – and controlling the Knudsen and Stoller Vineyards – Argyle undertook a major expansion in 1996 by purchasing the 160 acre Lone Star Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills. “I never make wine by a recipe,” relates Soles, and with his sparklers that applies not only to their ratios of Pinot Noir to Chardonnay and their dosage; it also applies to the levels of sugar at which fruit is picked, which can vary considerably. These are in any event consistently higher than one would encounter in Champagne, but even though finished alcohol typically centers on 13%, the wines exhibit no lack of levity. Soles gives his still Pinots an extended cold soak; generally inoculates, while trying to let the indigenous yeasts first have some say; extracts via punch-downs; and isn’t afraid to allow post-fermentative cap contact if he decides (as he usually does) that a wine will benefit. (Some excellent Pinots that Soles crafts under his own Roco label including from his own vineyard are covered in the on-line second part of this report.) Awkwardly lactic notes and/or what I like to call “memories of high malic” – not to mention sheer simplicity – dampened enthusiasm for those Argyle Chardonnays I tasted; an off-dry Argyle Riesling from their Lone Star Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills was canned fruit in character; musky; prematurely (as I see it) petrol-laced; and faintly metallic in finish, as was its sweeter (arguably overly-so) version dubbed “Nusshaus.” Many of the still wines here are given nicknames. The most prevalent of these – Nuthouse and Spirithouse – refer to past uses of the old buildings that serve as winery facilities in “downtown” Dundee, the latter designation picking out the more expensive cuvee of a given variety, though the word “reserve,” confusingly, gets used sometimes along with and sometimes in lieu of the aforementioned nickname.
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