Representing a new wine for them, Carver and Marcy's 2011 Chardonnay comprises two barrels from old vines at Wirtz assembled with three from the first crop off of a new vineyard neighboring to, and shared with, Seven Springs. Silken in texture, and delicate in both its (under 13% alcohol) weight and its evocations of lemon oil, apple blossom, fresh lime and raw hazelnut, this lingers soothingly as well as refreshingly. It will be fascinating to follow for at least 2-3 years, though potential owners should bear in mind that it has been neither filtered nor cold-stabilized. (The barrels for this cuvee, incidentally - like many of those employed at Big Table as well as at Coleen Clemens - are ones first utilized by Marcassin.)
The big news from proprietors Clare Carver and Brian Marcy - for much more about whose backgrounds, sites, and methods, consult my Issue 202 report - is twofold. Plans are now complete and ground will hopefully soon be broken for a winery facility at their farm west of Gaston (where they intend eventually, too, to plant a vineyard, one whose near and only neighbor will be Bergstrom's excitingly promising Gregory Ranch). On top of that, they have acquired the entire Wirtz vineyard at the extreme northwestern edge of the Willamette, whose old vines Marcy rescued from obscurity and dilapidation, and many of which have informed recent Big Table releases. (For some of this site's improbably history, consult my note in Issue 202 on the 2010 Wirtz Pinot Noir.) This acquisition will, among other things, mean responsibility for a significant influx of fruit from diverse Alsace cepages (even including Sylvaner) that pioneer Charles Coury favored - some of them in mixed plantings - and from which Carver and Marcy have elected (with my wholehearted encouragement, as a partisan of that genre) to render a sort of Gemischter Satz. (The intriguing, talented Pinot selection named for Coury also seems to have originated in the Vosges.) Marcy was in the minority of growers claiming to have had thicker Pinot skins in 2011 than in 2010, and he says that in utilizing a significant amount of whole clusters to ameliorate acidity and low pH, he had no concern for losing too much color or introducing extraneous tannin.
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