Vintages

A guide to cellaring and drinking your Goodfellow and Matello wines.

2010

One of Oregon's coolest vintages, 2010 is one of my favorites. Small, but if you are lucky enough to have 2010 Willamette Valley wines in your cellar, you have some good days coming.

The Durant Pinot noir is perfectly lovely now, although it will age for many more years. Supple and velvety, with an excellent core of darker purple fruit, floral over tones, and dry clean earth. This remains probably my favorite bottling from the vineyard, up until the 2017. The 2010 Whistling Ridge has been a little closed down lately, time open definitely allows it to show itself but I would suggest holding until this phase resolves. The 2010 Souris, arguably one of the greatest wines we have ever produced, is in a lovely window. Open as you feel like it, no rush as it has many more years of life but I would have no issue with drinking it today. 2010 Lazarus and Hommage are drinking well and offer excellent insight into the vintage. Cooler in nature, they are more ethereal and best enjoyed from good glassware over an entire evening.

2010 Whistling Ridge Blanc and 2010 Riesling have really entered the window and show all of the attributes of beautifully aged Alsatian wines.

The 2010 Richard's Cuvée Chardonnay, is ready to drink, but opens up over a couple of hours so please don’t rush the tasting experience. 2010 is the inaugural vintage of the Clover Pinot Gris bottling and it has finally reached it’s apex. What a phenomenal expression of Pinot gris! Unfortunately, bottled under cork and therefore subject to vagaries and variabilities that cause no end of frustration.

*Under natural cork there is always a distinct amount of bottle variation. As the wines age, this variation becomes more distinct. Regarding the notes here, all wines have been tasted recently, but for all bottles YMMV.*

**This post covers Matello wines**