Argyle’s 2010 Brut – nearly half each Chardonnay and Pinot – displays juicy lime, tangerine, grapefruit and apple, with citric and malic cut buffered by subtle, lees-induced creaminess, and with a fine mousse. There is an impressive balance between density and sheer sap on the one hand and levity and refreshment on the other. A saline streak serves for welcome saliva-inducement in a long, vibrant finish. Enjoy this exceptional value over the next 2-3 years – and meantime imagine how complex the “Extended Tirage” release is likely to be seven years from now! (Unfortunately, the winery was not yet ready to show me their 2010 Rose when I visited last July, although the Meunier-rich, greenhouse-scented, ultra-buoyant 2009 once again showed ravishingly.)
Co-founder and long-time director of Argyle Rollin Soles – for extensive information on whose background and methodology consult my issue 202 report – officially stepped-down from his post in March, though he will continue to advise the new director of winemaking, Wisconsin-born Nate Klostermann, who has been Soles’ assistant for almost 8 years, having arrived in Oregon via Petaluma, Argyle’s co-founding and long-time parent company. (Soles will now focus on his own Roco winery, on whose recent releases I again report in this issue.) No stock of Argyle Brut from either 2004 or torrid, early-harvested 2003 was set-aside for late-release as “Extended Tirage,” so the next installment of that consistently revelatory and profound wine will be a 2005 in a couple of years. “I was thinking about what a drag that fact is when I was putting together our tasting,” remarked Soles, channeling my thoughts. As in awe of and delighted with Argyle’s sparkling wines as I am – wines I dream might yet inspire consumers and vintners to conspire in the flowering of an Oregon sparkling wine culture – I continue to find their still wines far less successful, not to mention far less-attractively priced. In his 28 years at Argyle, 2011 is the only vintage in which Soles has elected to chaptalize even a single lot; but then, he offers climatological data to suggest that the last time things were as cool for the aggregate Willamette growing season was in 1954, when nobody was concerned yet about ripening wine grapes!
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