some very nice reviews from Parker's wine advocate and the pinot file!!

Thanks! Rusty the pinot file!

2011 Big Table Farm Wirtz Vineyard Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

12.6% alc., 119 cases, $45. This vineyard is old by Oregon standards as it was planted in the early 1970s. Brian likes to say he was still wearing diapers when the vines went into the ground in this vineyard. · Moderate reddish-purple color in the glass. This wine reminds of cherry pie baking day at cooking school. Deliciously flavored with ripe cherries and baking spices with a hint of sandalwood and wintergreen. Crisp and juicy with a long, spirited finish. Hard to put your finger on the reasons for it, but this wine grabs your interest and holds on. An old vine treasure. Score: 94pts

2011 Big Table Farm Resonance Vineyard Yamhill-Carlton Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

12.9% alc., 287 cases, $48. This vineyard is the warmest site in the Big Table Farm lineup. Typically this wine needs a few years to mature and this is evident in this vintage as well despite spending a year in barrel and a year in bottle. · Moderately deep reddish-purple color in the glass. A well-mannered wine with aromas of dark cherry, marionberry and spice that fill the glass. While the core of black cherry fruit is delicious now, the wine is relatively primary at this stage. Still, it is obviously a classy and sophisticated offering. The tannins are firm but balanced and the finish is juicy and well-endowed with grandiose fruit flavor. Hold for 2-3 years or decant if you must drink now. Score: 93 - 94pts

2011 Big Table Farm Brooks Estate Vineyard Eola-Amity Hills Willamette Valley Riesling

11.4% alc., 91 cases, $28. Barrel fermented to dryness with native yeasts and complete malolactic fermentation. · Moderate golden yellow color and slight haze (unfiltered) in the glass. Lovely aromas of lemon zest, wet stone, buttered brioche and paraffin. Very flavorful with pleasing notes of lemon and grapefruit with a touch of spice and a subtle petrol note. Slightly creamy in the mouth with a firm grip of lemony acidity on the bright finish. I don’t drink much Riesling, but I know a great one when I taste it. Score: 90pts

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 And some excellent reviews and scores by david schildknecht - from robert parkers wine advocate... : )

2011 Big Table Farm Pinot Noir Cattrall Brothers Vineyard
93pts- David Schildknecht Drink: 2013 - 2022

An extraordinarily Volnay-like nose and palate of porcini and morels steeped in fresh red fruits and tinged with spices characterizes Big Table's 2011 Pinot Noir Cattrall Brothers Vineyard. The alliance displayed here of textural tenderness and underlying richness with levity and sheer refreshment is irresistible. Moss, wet stone, and mineral salts lend further mouthwatering intrigue to a lusciously as well as invigoratingly lingering finish. Many growers advised me that any of their colleagues who claimed not to have chaptalized in 2011 were lying; but I'm quite sure the 11.9% alcohol in this late October-harvested Pinot from immaculately and organically tended vines is "natural"! Expect this umami-rich, delightfully distinctive elixir to perform with dazzling versatility through at least 2022. ("Brothers" is new to the label this year, incidentally, but the vineyard is none other than that described at greater length in my Issue 202 review of the 2010 Big Table Cattrall as well as of Ransom Wines- rendition.)

2011 Big Table Farm Pinot Noir Wirtz Vineyard
93pts - David Schildknecht- Drink: 2013 - 2022


Wild ginger-, sassafras-, walnut- and lemon rind-inflected red berries scent and flavor Carver and Marcy's 2011 Pinot Noir Wirtz Vineyard whose infectiously juicy brightness, incisive spiciness, zesty piquancy, red raspberry seed-crunch and cyanic cherry-pit glow are further augmented by a sharp and subsequently musky bite uncannily akin to rose radish. I imagined a significant contribution of stems in the fermenter given the great support, complexity, the vibrancy that attends the tannins here, but it turns out that nearly all of the fruit for this bottling was de-stemmed. Finishing with vibrant and invigorating persistence, this buoyant (12.6% alcohol) beauty ought to perform gloriously through at least 2022.


2011 Big Table Farm Pinot Noir Resonance Vineyard

91pts - David Schildknecht Drink: 2013 - 2020

Representing Carver's and Marcy's largest as well as (at 12.9%) highest alcohol lot of its vintage, their 2011 Pinot Noir Resonance Vineyard features a luscious strawberry and red raspberry melange subtly marked by oak resin and caramel. The tannins here are noticeable but well-integrated, and musky allusions to peony and narcissus waft all the way through to the wine's long, lip-smacking finish. I imagine that this will perform well through at least 2020 and may well gain complexity along the way. (I learned just before going to press that next year's will be the last Big Table Resonance Pinot, now that the vineyard has been purchased by Jadot.)

2011 Big Table Farm Pinot Noir Sunnyside Vineyard
91pts - David Schildknecht - Drink: 2013 - 2020

Carver and Marcy's 2011 Pinot Noir Sunnyside Vineyard issues from a site southeast of Salem planted with Wadenswil already in 1970, that they have tapped here for the first time and report being meticulously and tirelessly farmed by the same family since the 1980s. Red currant and sour cherry give a juicy, tangy, berry-crunching vintage-typical account of themselves on a polished buoyant palate, with invigorating notes of cress and a mouthwatering lick of salt adding to the refreshing and sustained finishing appeal. This may well gain complexity with some time in bottle and ought surely to perform admirably through at least 2020.


2011 Big Table Farm Pinot Noir - Willamette Valley

90pts - David Schildknecht - Drink: 2013 - 2018

Bringing together fruit from numerous sites including those also subjected to single-vineyard bottlings, the generic Big Table 2011 Pinot Noir reflects a roughly 50% share of whole clusters in the fermenter. Juicy wild cherry tinged with rose hip, hibiscus, geranium, mint and orange rind make for a refreshing and metaphorically cooling performance that's also delightfully buoyant (at 12.6% alcohol) and texturally tender. This exemplifies not just its vintage's delicious peculiarities but also virtues that - among red wines, at least - only Pinot Noir can deliver. I suspect this will delight through 2018.

2011 Big Table Farm Chardonnay
90pts - David Schildknecht - Drink: 2013 - 2016

Representing a new wine for them, Carver and Marcy's 2011 Chardonnay comprises two barrels from old vines at Wirtz assembled with three from the first crop off of a new vineyard neighboring to, and shared with, Seven Springs. Silken in texture, and delicate in both its (under 13% alcohol) weight and its evocations of lemon oil, apple blossom, fresh lime and raw hazelnut, this lingers soothingly as well as refreshingly. It will be fascinating to follow for at least 2-3 years, though potential owners should bear in mind that it has been neither filtered nor cold-stabilized. (The barrels for this cuvee, incidentally - like many of those employed at Big Table as well as at Coleen Clemens - are ones first utilized by Marcassin.)