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J. Scott Cellars 2017 Blanc de Noirs
Painting with the full palette of colors
Jonathan Oberlander, winemaker and founder of J. Scott Cellars, loves experimenting, dabbling, and playing with new varietals and unusual blends.
As he told the Eugene Register-Guard, “I have a buddy who has only made Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. To me that’s like painting in the colors red and blue only. You have this entire palette; why limit yourself? I go for it.” And he does. J. Scott features nineteen different wines. Which one is his favorite? Don’t ask – he’ll tell you it’s like picking your favorite child: they’re all great!
J. Scott Cellars is part of the burgeoning urban winery scene in Eugene, with a facility in an industrial park on the outskirts of town. The brick-and-mortar location is a nice step in the evolution of J. Scott.
Without a personal fortune to sink into wine, he’s bootstrapped his way up, starting with a production of just 100 cases when he started – and closing in on 2500 today.
Cellar 503 Tasting Notes
J. Scott Cellars, Eugene, Oregon
2017 Blanc de Noirs
Red wine is red. White wine is white. Right?
Not exactly. A rosé is a red wine made in a white-wine style, lightly pressed with barely a touch of skin contact. An orange wine is a white wine made in a red-wine style, with a lots of skin contact through fermentation.
A white Pinot Noir, well, that’s a wine made with 100% Pinot Noir grapes that are immediately pressed, not left on the skins at all, and fermented in a cool environment – just the way white wines are made.
The J. Scott Blanc de Noirs is a blend of multiple Pinot Noir wines made in the white style. (Typically, “Blanc de Noir” means sparkling, but not in this case!)
This full-bodied white wine has a silky mouth feel as well as a good amount of acid resulting in a well-balanced wine. You’ll recognize it immediately as a Pinot Noir – notes of pomegranate and cherry emerge – but the resulting wine is more citrus-forward with notes of grapefruit and a great thread of minerality through it all.
A Cellar 503 selection in January 2021, Winter Warmers Oregon | Pinot Noir
