Pale ruby, the 2017 Pinot Noir Terres Basses has broody scents of aniseed, underbrush and earth with floral-laced blackberry fruit. The medium-bodied palate is firm and juicy, with a dichotomy of broody earth and bright fruit character, and it finishes long and lifted. Give it another couple years in bottle. 445 cases produced.

Medium ruby, the 2016 Pinot Noir Terres Basses opens with broody scents of dried tobacco leaves, tar, blackberries and black currants with touches of cinnamon stick, dried citrus peel and amaro. The palate is medium-bodied and silky with youthfully coiled fruits, grainy tannins and juicy freshness, finishing bitters-laced. Give this another year in bottle. 500 cases produced.

The 2012 Pinot Noir Terres Basses has a clean and pure bouquet with sultry blackberry and briary scents intermingling with black tea and bay leaf. It clearly needs two or three years to "unwind." The palate is medium-bodied with crunchy red and black fruit, a dash of white pepper and sage surfacing with time. It does not fan out, but remains linear and quite masculine, a little austere at the moment, but surely willing to mellow out with bottle age. Serious, introverted but cerebral Pinot.

The 2011 Pinot Noir Terres Basses comes from several clones that were picked November 8-14 and aged for 14 months in 40% new French oak. It feels just a little staid on the nose compared to the Triple Black '11; does not possess the same degree of energy. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins with tart red cherry fruit and a dash of white pepper. It just feels a little pinched at the moment and does not quite "flow" like the Triple Black or Emery cuvées.

Cinnamon-tinged dark cherry as well as some superficial caramel and smoky toast from barrel rise from the glass of WillaKenzie 2010 Pinot Noir Terres Basses, whose palate performance ends up being much tarter than its nose had led me to anticipate, suggesting a mingling of rhubarb with the ripe, spiced cherry. “The higher clay content in this earlier ripening, lower vineyard area,” suggests Mandet, “really impacts the flavor and structure of the wine,” so that there is greater acid retention, and at the same time, “we really have to be careful vinifying this fruit and hold back on extraction, because it naturally has small berries and a lot of structure.” Mandet is convinced that – in keeping with his experience of this bottling vintage after vintage – “this is a wonderful keeper.” I’ll be conservative and suggest: through 2018 anyway. “We really pushed the envelope in 2011 to achieve full ripeness,” explains Thibaud Mandet, “so we picked a lot in the first week of November, and continued until the last week of November.” This suggests that he and his partner, WillaKenzie founder Bernard Lacroute, may have set the record in this extreme harvest. “It was a little bit stressful,” adds Mandet with evident understatement, “because as you know the days are getting shorter and cooler, and the weather can change suddenly. But luckily it stayed dry and breezy compared with many vintages. In the end we did only a little bit of chaptalization.” “Of course,” adds Lacroute, “this all depends on maintaining the health of your vines and fruit, because if you get a little bit of rot inside the clusters, it’s ‘game over,’ and you’ve got to pick.” Amazingly, considering the lateness of harvest and the fact that the 2011s here also went into barrel late and were slow to undergo malo-lactic transformation, Mandet and Lacroute elected to bottle their top tier of Pinots a couple of weeks earlier than usual, already in February and March of this year. The 2010 vintage was late here too by long-term standards, but nonetheless finished on November 1, at which point in 2011 most of the harvest action still lay ahead. What’s more, alcohol levels – naturally in the mid to upper 13% – were nearer normal. But then, 2010 yields were very low. Whether the phenolic evolution in 2011 was superior, I won’t be able to judge until next year, because most of the WillaKenzie Pinots are only released and shown to me in their third year. In lieu of acidulation, incidentally, Mandet says he will often harvest a small portion of a given vineyard early to generate a higher-acid lot that can then be used for blending. Additional experience this July with WillaKenzie’s very limited reserve bottlings certainly showed me the potential here for positive bottle maturation as well as for moderation – given time – of both vintage extremities and new oak influence. (Mandet and Lacroute were not, however, ready to show me their 2009 Reserve; and indeed, the 2008 is only just being released. For more about this estate and the personalities and vineyards behind it, consult my introduction in Issue 202.) Tel. (503) 662-3280