Evesham Wood, Pinot Noir

This wine is exactly why I’ve been saying for years that when it comes to pure price-to-quality, nobody in the world can touch what Oregon delivers in great vintages. The 2024 Evesham Wood Pinot Noir proves that point. Pinot Noir this complete, transparent, and flat-out delicious almost never exists at this level. Quite frankly, this is lights-out Oregon Pinot Noir for Burgundy lovers who want quality without the $100 price tag.

The 2024 vintage in Oregon is already being spoken about in the same breath as benchmark years like 1999 and 2012, vintages that longtime growers in the Willamette Valley still reference with a certain sparkle in their eye. After tasting through wines from the harvest over the past several months, I can confidently say the excitement is justified. The season delivered one of those rare combinations every Pinot Noir producer dreams about: long, even ripening conditions, warm dry days, cool nights, and fruit that achieved remarkable flavor intensity while still preserving freshness and tension. The resulting wines possess an effortless harmony and precision that make truly great Pinot Noir so compelling.

I’ve been fortunate to visit Evesham Wood every few years, and walking through that front door is like stepping into a time capsule of what Oregon wine used to be. It’s a humble building, a small team, and a wall full of regional maps with enough information to overwhelm even the geekiest of sommeliers. You might taste through the lineup with a spread of French cheeses followed by a simple, old-school meal at a communal table, and for a nostalgic moment you could swear you’ve stumbled into a farmhouse in rural Burgundy. A short walk down to the barrel room only deepens that feeling, nothing there looks like it has changed in 40 years, and that is entirely the point.

Evesham Wood was founded in 1986 by Russ and Mary Raney, who trained and tasted extensively in Burgundy before realizing that Oregon’s cool climate, volcanic soils, and long growing season were the closest thing to a New World Côte d’Or. Russ helped shape the Willamette Valley’s identity, not just through his own wines, but as a co-founder of the Deep Roots Coalition, a group committed to dry-farming and the belief that irrigation dilutes terroir by preventing vines from digging deep for water and nutrients. Their philosophy was simple: healthy vines, honest farming, no shortcuts. That ethos hasn’t budged in nearly forty years, and it still defines the wines today.

Most of their vineyards sit in the Eola–Amity Hills AVA, one of the Willamette Valley’s most coveted sub-regions, where cold Pacific wind funnels through the Van Duzer Corridor every afternoon, slowing ripening and locking in acidity. The soils, mostly volcanic Nekia and Jory basalts, naturally restrict vigor and produce small-berried Pinot with fine tannins, bright red fruit, and an elegance more reminiscent of Chambolle than California. When Russ retired, he didn’t sell to a conglomerate, he passed the torch to assistant winemaker Erin Nuccio, who was also crafting his own Haden Fig wines at the estate and shared the same minimalist, Burgundian instincts. Erin kept the formula intact: dry-farming, native yeast fermentations, minimal new oak, and harvesting based on flavor rather than lab numbers. The result remains the same: graceful, transparent, terroir-driven Pinot Noir.

The 2024 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir continues the classic Evesham Wood style that has made the winery one of Oregon’s quiet benchmarks for traditional Pinot Noir. Fermented with native yeasts and aged primarily in neutral French oak, the focus here is purity, texture, and site transparency rather than extraction or flashy winemaking. In the glass, the 2024 is hauntingly aromatic, bursting with wild strawberry, crushed raspberry, rose petal, blood orange, and subtle forest floor notes underneath. The palate is silky, energetic, and beautifully layered, balancing generous fruit with savory complexity and fresh acidity that keeps you reaching for another sip. There is a sense of precision and effortless balance here that perfectly captures why the 2024 vintage is already being called one of the great modern Oregon harvests.

To enjoy, briefly decant for 15–20 minutes before serving just above cellar temperature in Burgundy stems, roughly 55–60°F depending on your preference. Serving it slightly cooler will enhance the floral tones and freshness. This wine absolutely sings with cedar plank salmon, roast duck, mushroom risotto, or a perfectly roasted chicken with crispy potatoes. Honestly though, this may be the ultimate “Tuesday night Pinot,” the kind of bottle that somehow elevates even a simple dinner into something memorable. While it will age gracefully for the next 5–7 years if stored cold and dark, the charm and balance of the 2024 vintage make it incredibly hard to resist right now.