Maison l’Envoye The Attaché Pinot Noir 2014 | Powerful & Vibrant

Winery | Red fruits and lifted floral aromas complement the mineral and forest floor notes. The Maison l’Envoye The Attaché Pinot Noir 2014 palate is mouth-filling, textured and lush. Bing cherry and blackcurrant flavors lead with layers of oak-derived spice adding depth. Finally, supple, well-integrated tannins provide definition to the long and elegant finish.  Drink now through 2022. From Winemaker Louis-Michel Liger-Belair.

92JS | Rich and ripe with cherry and berry aromas. Full body, round and chewy tannins. More extracted than some from Oregon. Chewy finish. A year or two more of bottle age would soften it out.

Red Wine Gems Under $35

93-Vinous | The Maison l’Envoye The Attaché Pinot Noir 2014 presents limpid ruby-red. With Powerful red berry and Asian spice aromas.   Along with suggestions of smoky minerals and incense. In addition sweet, seamless and penetrating on the palate, offering vibrant raspberry, cherry, and spicecake flavors and a subtle touch of blood orange.  While silky tannins emerge slowly and fold smoothly into the vibrant fruit on the long, nervy finish.  Which leaves notes of five-spice powder and red berries behind.

92WS | Light and savory, with meaty, peppery overtones to the cherry and floral flavors, finishing gracefully. Has layers of complexity and terrific persistence. Best from 2018 through 2022.

 Maison L’Envoyé a “Winery to Watch.” Decanter

“Powerful.” “Vibrant.” “Sweet, seamless and penetrating on the palate.  While these are just some of the superlatives Vinous founder Antonio Galloni cast toward the Maison l’Envoye The Attaché Pinot Noir 2014. No adjective would’ve been over the top, either — this is an exceptional wine for two reasons. First, it is crafted by Louis-Michel Liger-Belair of Domaine Liger-Belair, famed for owning La Romanée Monopole, from which he makes one of the greatest wines of Burgundy. Galloni recently described a vertical tasting of La Romanée between 1865 – 2014 as a “once in a lifetime” experience and the 1865 as a “testament to one of Burgundy’s great vigneron families and La Romanée.”

Second, Wine Spectator rated the 2014 vintage in Oregon a whopping 96 points, and Galloni proclaimed it “a vintage that’s at least the equal of 2012.” This perfect marriage of vintage and vintner produced a phenomenal wine that would command top dollar if it came from Bordeaux. In addition, packed with “vibrant raspberry, cherry, and spicecake flavors and a subtle touch of blood orange.

Winemaker Louis-Michel Liger-Belair

Many precise and specific winemaking techniques are employed that together produce a soulful and generous expression of the fruit flavors while avoiding any heavy tannin, rough edges or alcoholic extraction. Picking fully physiologically ripe berries, often later than much of the valley, consulting winemaker Louis-Michel Liger-Belair’s infusion technique is more akin to steeping rather than an aggressive extraction process.

For the 2014 “Attache,” Louis-Michel found himself surrounded by what many Oregon vintners called a vintage of a lifetime.  While he deploys his trademark minimally invasive style to some of the Willamette Valley’s choicest grapes.  Hence, allowing them to tell the tale of the mind-bending harvest on their terms.  As a result, it’s wise to listen to what the fruit has to say.