2019 Gemini Vineyard WV Pinot magnum

Center of the Circus

A Story: This ferment always tries to kill itself. It looks you in the eye and lulls you into thinking it’s going along with the program, and then it takes a left turn somewhere beyond milepost WTF. So, you get it on its feet, get it some coffee and tell it how handsome it is. Inevitably, it responds and seeks favor, all the while courting the spotlight beyond.

The Cliff Notes: The wine is darker garnet in glass. The nose is a crazy beautiful circus peanut candy, cherry cheesecake, kind baby diaper (I know) and green peppercorn. The palate is fresh red and blue fruit followed by a box of chocolates in a wood shop. It’s long, round and structured, finishing on lightly sanded oak.

The Building of: Once again the three best barrels are here: wild-yeast fermented in stainless steel, 100% barrel aged for 18 months in French oak (no new, one once-filled, two twice-filled), selected and assembled as the best of the best. Bottled unfiltered in April 2021.

Ageability: We absolutely recommend that you consider decanting to get it some air within its first three years. This wine should easily climb in complexity beyond ten years.

Vineyards: The Laurelwood soil of Gemini Vineyard in the Chehalem Mountains AVA is a rich, wind-blown loess that contributes vigor to the plants and good acid to the wines made from these grapes, which are grafted, 29-year-old, Scott Henry–trained, Pommard clone Pinot noir.

— Jim Prosser, owner/winemaker