Arterberry Maresh, Dundee Hills Pinot Noir

Perhaps more than any other—and there have been many before it—today’s wine hammers home my oft-repeated claim that Oregon produces the best-value Pinot Noirs in the world. But there’s more: Arterberry Maresh comes from one of the founding families of Willamette Valley wine, whose old-vine parcel in the Dundee Hills is a critical piece of Oregon wine history—a landmark to rival the trailblazing Eyrie Vineyard.It seems that no matter how many times we are floored by a Pinot Noir from this region, another one comes along and raises the bar. Now it is wunderkind winemaker Jim Arterberry Maresh, a third-generation Dundee Hills grower, who has raised the bar to a seemingly insurmountable height; the amount of nuance, aromatic complexity, and pure Pinot Noir character this wine delivers at this price simply defies logic. As a devoted Burgundy lover, I could probably find a few wines to put up against this 2018, but the list would be short, and it’d be apples and oranges, anyway—the slight ed