Description
Big Table Farm, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir
Welcome to part two of our Big Table Farm feature where we have the honor of highlighting one of the hottest $50 Pinot Noirs on the market. We’ve tracked this tremendous success story for some time now, and every Willamette Pinot allocation we’ve managed to secure—our first since the ’18 vintage—has disappeared in an instant.
Why so much brouhaha over a single label? Big Table’s pure, Pacific-kissed fruit is sourced from top sites throughout the valley, all of which are treated with the same level of sustainable, high-quality care from bud break to harvest. These whole-cluster, foot-stomped grapes are gently raised in French barrels and always bottled with minimal intervention in mind. Ultimately, Big Table’s elegantly plush and poised wines provide a thunderous yes to the question: “Can Oregon exist in the upper echelon of Pinot Noir?” NOTE: Our farm-to-table parcel is coming directly from the winery so please allow two weeks for it to arrive at our warehouse.
With previous positions held at high-profile Napa wineries like Marcassin and Blankiet Estate, Brian Marcy is no stranger to the spotlight. But, when he and his wife Clare wanted to expand their “farm”—which in 2005 consisted of chickens running amok in the backyard of their small home—they jointly agreed to move away from Napa’s exorbitantly priced real estate and try their luck in Oregon.
They found solace an hour’s drive from Portland, in the small town of Gaston, ideally wedged between the sub-AVAs of Chehalem Mountain and Yamhill-Carlton District. They realized their dream in short order and now their 70 acres and 1890s-era farmhouse are replete with livestock, crops, beehives, grapevines. They grow everything, raise everything…truly, this is a full-fledged, self-sustaining farm.
But we’re not here to buy meat or honey (not today, anyway) so let’s get to the wine: As mentioned, they craft several different vineyard-designate wines, but their “Willamette Valley” bottling pulls from all of their top Pinot Noir sites located in the central and northern sections of the valley. Brian’s philosophy for this bottle is a much-needed breath of fresh air: “It would be arrogant of me to think I could predict which fruit will turn into the best wine,” he says, “so I treat all with equal diligence.”
After a manual harvest, the fruit sees a ‘whole-cluster’ fermentation via indigenous yeasts and aging occurs in mostly neutral French oak for just under one year. It is bottled unfined and unfiltered, and each hand-applied, annually rotating label—showcasing one of their beloved farm animals—is designed by Clare. In 2021, it was an American Guinea hog named Ingrid.
Big Table’s 2021 Willamette Pinot Noir has so much charm, refreshment, and elegance. The palate is perfectly medium-bodied and delivers succulent, wonderfully lifted brambly berry flavors of all shades—blue, purple, red, black—before shifting into a long, velvety finish featuring baking spices and a cooling sensation of damp autumnal leaves, sage, and red tea. It’s a joy to drink right now, but I think another six months of evolution in bottle (putting it exactly at the two-year-old mark) will unlock a new dimension. Cheers!
