2013 Tendril C~Note Pinot Noir

Tendril Wine Cellars: A STUNNING 180 Degree Reversal of A Paradigm

Tendril is simply the best American winery for Pinot Noir that I have ever come across; even including all those Sonoma and Mt. Eden and San Luis Obispo wineries I love.

I’m not going to climb on this old horse again.

Who am I kidding? Of course, I am…

People who have read The Pour Fool know my views on Pinot Noir and, in particular, Oregon Pinot Noir. For anyone who doesn’t, here it is: Not a fan. If I buy a Pinot, it’s A) probably for someone else, or B) from Burgundy or California and the latter about fifty times more than the former. Not really a fan of Chardonnay, either, having worn it out by sheer repetition, so when it comes to Burgundian varietals, I’m kinda out. There ARE a few – a VERY few – Oregon Pinots that I’ve consumed and enjoyed – Stangeland, Purple Hands, Brickhouse(!), Knudsen, a couple from Patricia Green, and the Mac-Daddy, Ken Wright Cellars, for which I would almost pass up an average Cab or Malbec or Sangio or Syrah. Or most any other varietal that’s not Pinot.

But, for almost the entire going-on-28 years I have worked in the wine trade, geeky pals of mine have been insisting that I would eventually wind up in a passionate lip-lock – of an intensity suggestive of a fanatical Middle Eastern religious cult – with Pinot Noir. Because, as almost all of them have said, “Everybody does, eventually.“

Ain’t happened.

Not gonna.

So, when I said I wasn’t going to climb on this old horse…well, I’ve failed again. Normally, this disdain for Pinot Noir would go on for pages. But, this time, I am forced – by what little shame I possess and an antiquated sense of fairness that is unseemly, here in the Trump Era – to acknowledge a YUGE and revelatory shift in my personal Pinot Paradigm, occasioned by the arrival, via FedEx, of a large box containing a regulation slew of shocking, stunning, seismic wines from Tony Rynders, the former winemaker for Domaine Serene (yet another Oregon winery I mostly ignored), working under the rubric of his new venture, Tendril Wine Cellars.

28 November 2018The Pour Fool

Gorgeous wine from Tony Rynders, former winemaker at Domaine Serene. It’s worth noting that Rynders choose to do 100% whole cluster fermentation—which is the most difficult way to make Pinot Noir; it can go wrong in a thousand different ways, but when it’s done right, it is stunning. This wine is silky, sleek with profound earthy and cherry notes, utterly addictive, seamless purity complexity. Worth every penny of its $100 price tag. Says Rynders, “you’ll taste smokiness, enticing high toned aromatics, some floral and spicy notes on the palate. There is attenuation on the palate that lasts minutes as opposed to seconds. Serve with the cheese course; it can also stand up to a hearty protein such lamb with rosemary.

29 November 2017Forbes

Broad and supple, open-textured and appealing for the spicy black cherry and licorice flavors, lingering easily on the polished finish.

1 January 2017Wine Spectator