Were I served this blind, I would guess it came from California's Santa Barbara region instead of Oregon. As compared to Oregon's lusher dark fruit and violets, it's more about cherry-strawberry fruit and the skin of a just-picked tomato, cool and slightly herbaceous. Not at all a typical Evanstadt Reserve, a wine I've followed since 1992, yet spicy and charming enough to convince me to buy six bottles in 2007, an act of faith rewarded almost immediately with a disconcerting, four-year long vegetal coma. Which is pretty much the old pinot rule about leaving them alone between years 3-4 and 8, though this wine and a lot of other old faithfuls I used to apply that seem to stay awake anymore, like most of the St. Innocents.
Anyway, I'm happy to announce that it has finally awakened without me wasting my entire stash trying to get it right. Much more secondary than primary, it has wrapped the flavors described above in the warm, mushroomy aromatics of maturity. A bit of dried orange peel adds a more-sweet-than-bitter component to the lengthy finish and gives the wine some mouthfeel in lieu of the faded tannins. Deliciously at peak now, though not a candidate for further aging and overall, one of the poorer performers among the Evanstadts I've known.