One of Oregon's older wineries, Lange, went through a floundering period after the death of it's raconteur owner who might in fact have been a better storyteller than winemaker for mainstream tastes. His pinots were often funky, and that doesn't appeal to everybody.
But the winery is now in the hands of Lange's son, Jesse, who is proving to have a deft hand. His wines were a stand-out at a recent tasting event where some 100 or so wineries were pouring, and I purchased both his '14 pinot grigio and the 2013 North Block pinot noir ($48). So when I saw the 2012 Lange Reserve pinot noir at Costco a few weeks ago marked down to about $20, I grabbed a pair.
We opened the first bottle that very evening, and to be honest I was a little disappointed. It was a bit green. Green for pinot, green for the vintage. And it seemed a bit light--not in appearance, just somewhat dilute on the palate. But all of that is precisely why I pulled its stablemate last night. We were having chicken ravioli in a pesto sauce, and where a warmer climate pinot wouldn't be an intuitive match for the dish I actually thought that in this case the herbal aspects of the food might cancel out that note in the wine in a way beneficial to both.
I wasn't wrong. More to the fore this time was the dark plummy fruit with the loamy, damp forest notes typical of Oregon pinots but also a surprising and highly uncharacteristic streak of bay leaf and black pepper across the mid-palate and into the finish. Body was solidly medium, finish good. If I'd been tasting blind, that pepperiness would totally have thrown me off the track of pinot noir--I might have guessed syrah, though no other characteristics were particularly syrah-ish. Regardless, a terrific match for the dish--the wine tasted better after a bite of pasta, and the pasta tasted better after a swish of wine.