America’s Best Value Pinot Noirs

A second generation of harmonious wines

The down-home, country-comfort styling of Lange Estate Winery and Vineyards’ 2013 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (91 points, $25) flows naturally from the Lange family, who founded their winery in the Dundee Hills in 1987.

Don Lange was a successful singer/songwriter back in the day and still maintains a recording studio at the winery. He and Wendy Lange moved to Oregon with their young son, Jesse, to focus on Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay.

Jesse, now the general manager and winemaker, says his earliest wine memories are from the tender age of seven, picking grapes at the Sanford & Benedict Vineyard in Santa Barbara County. In Oregon, Jesse says he grew up “with farming and wine as a part of my being.”

Nonetheless, making affordable, outstanding Pinot Noir in substantial quantities is no small achievement.

“Nobody feels like they fall out of bed and have a grasp on making great Pinot Noir,” Lange says. “I think you have to have your fair share of failures and learning experiences before you build the dossier and background required to feel comfortable around this persnickety grape.”

Over more than a quarter-century, the Langes have produced up to a dozen different Pinots annually, one reason this family-owned enterprise can compete with much bigger entities on both price and quality.

“Even though we are a small winery, we are extremely focused on allowing each vineyard and each block to fully express its potential,” says Jesse. “We pick up to 85 different blocks of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and keep every lot distinct and discreet all the way to barrel aging.”

Though the vast majority go into single-vineyard wines, it’s the blended cuvée, Jesse believes, that best showcases the strengths of the region.

“I expect our Willamette Valley Cuvée to be a superb snapshot of the region and the vintage,” says Jesse. “It tends to be more in the red fruit and spice spectrum than some of our other wines, and also tends to be more approachable in its youth.

“Fully 50 percent of our 2013 release is sourced from blocks within the Freedom Hill and Lange Estate Dundee Hills properties, our two most pedigreed sites.”

Although 2013 was a challenging year, with heavy rains interrupting harvest, the wineries that identified optimal picking times made wines as good or better than those from easier, riper vintages like 2012 and 2014.

For Jesse Lange, the best 2013s have superb typicity, and their classical feels remind him of the 2010 vintage.

Taste it for yourself, perhaps, as the Langes suggest, with fresh, wild-caught Pacific Northwest salmon.

—Paul Gregutt