Placeholder Image
SommSelect

Love & Squalor, Pinot Noir

Oregon, United States 2016 (750mL)
$30.00
/
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Your cart is empty.
  • In stock, ready to ship
Fruit
Earth
Body
Tannin
Acid
Alcohol
SommSelect

Love & Squalor, Pinot Noir

File today’s wine under “living the dream.” Matt Berson, maker of Love & Squalor, is a self-described refugee from the restaurant business who first began apprenticing with Oregon winemakers 2003. Years of travel to places as far-flung as Napa, New Zealand, Germany, and Argentina eventually led back to Oregon, where he and his wife, Angela Reat, founded Portland Wine Company. In 2007, they made 65 cases of wine. In 2016, it was 3,000—with today’s Willamette Valley Pinot Noir as their hugely overachieving, value-priced flagship.
Even when you consider how much Pinot Noir value you regularly get in Willamette Valley, Love & Squalor clearly stands out from the pack. Having learned from many great mentors, including Patricia Green, Jay Somers of J. Christopher, and Chris Williams at Brooks, Berson has also amassed a formidable collection of top Willamette Valley vineyard sources. His focus has been on Pinot Noir and Riesling, his growth steady, and his approach both meticulous and minimalist at the same time. Today’s 2016 again captures what Willamette Valley does so well: combine New World exuberance with Old World soul. There are innumerable red Burgundies in this price range that don’t come close to this wine’s level of pleasure and purity, so while it’s been said many times before, I’ll say it yet again: Oregon produces the best price-to-quality Pinot Noirs on the market and this is another example of why. It’s priced for daily drinking, so take this by the case and have zero regrets.
As Berson explains, his Willamette Valley Pinot Noir bottling has always been a blend of different vineyard sites in different subzones, which vary in soil composition, altitude, vine age, and microclimate. Currently, the wine is a blend of six distinct sites, rooted in varying combinations of sedimentary and volcanic soils, and typically contains fruit from the famed Temperance Hill Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills. Overall, Berson is working with a dozen different growers across the region, proclaiming his soft spot for “…the more raggedy, rustic sites.”

Berson ferments in small lots; strives to use only ambient yeasts; and incorporates varying percentages of whole grape clusters in his fermentations, depending on the vintage. Punch-downs (the practice of submerging the ‘cap’ of skins into the fermenting juice) are done manually. Today’s wine was aged in neutral French oak barrels for 18 months before bottling and was racked (transferred from one barrel to another, to clarify and slightly oxygenate the juice) twice during that time.

Close followers of Oregon’s recent harvests know that both 2014 and ’15 were hotter vintages that produced somewhat bolder wines, whereas ’16 was a more “classic” year, with some occasional cool spells that moderated the overall intensity of most wines. The 2016 edition of Love & Squalor is a translucent ruby moving to pink at the rim, with a very pretty nose of ripe black cherries and raspberries, wild strawberries, rose petals and tea leaf with faint hints of sandalwood and baking spices. It is medium-bodied and seductively silky, with great freshness that will preserve it well over the next few years. No need to decant it, just pull the cork and let it rip at 60-65 degrees in a Burgundy stem. A subtle hint of underbrush in the wine has me leaning lighter meat dishes for the pairing. Let’s give the attached pork roast a try. It feels like a perfect midweek supper combination to me. Enjoy!
Placeholder Image
Country
United States
Region
Oregon
Sub-Region
United StatesWillamette Valley
Soil
Volcanic and Sedimentary
Farming
Sustainable
Blend
Pinot Noir
Alcohol
13.5
OAK
Neutral French
TEMP.
60-65
Glassware
Burgundy Stems
Drinking
Now-2025
Decanting
Optional
Pairing
Fennel/Garlic Pork Roast

United States

Washington

Columbia Valley

Like many Washington wines, the “Columbia Valley” indication only tells part of the story: Columbia Valley covers a huge swath of Central
Washington, within which are a wide array of smaller AVAs (appellations).

Oregon

Willamette Valley

Oregon’s Willamette Valley has become an elite winegrowing zone in record time. Pioneering vintner David Lett, of The Eyrie Vineyard, planted the first Pinot Noir in the region in 1965, soon to be followed by a cadre of forward-thinking growers who (correctly) saw their wines as America’s answer to French
Burgundies. Today, the Willamette
Valley is indeed compared favorably to Burgundy, Pinot Noir’s spiritual home. And while Pinot Noir accounts for 64% of Oregon’s vineyard plantings, there are cool-climate whites that must not be missed.

California

Santa Barbara

Among the unique features of Santa Barbara County appellations like Ballard Canyon (a sub-zone of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA), is that it has a cool, Pacific-influenced climate juxtaposed with the intense luminosity of a southerly
latitude (the 34th parallel). Ballard Canyon has a more north-south orientation compared to most Santa Barbara AVAs, with soils of sandy
clay/loam and limestone.

California

Paso Robles

Situated at an elevation of 1,600 feet, it is rooted in soils of sandy loam and falls within the Highlands District of the Paso Robles AVA.

New York

North Fork

Wine growers and producers on Long Island’s North Fork have traditionally compared their terroir to that of Bordeaux and have focused on French varieties such as Cabernet Franc and Merlot.

Others We Love