Vertical Tasting-Styring Vineyards Pinot Noir

over the course of the next week i will be blogging about a vertical tasting, something i have been wanting to do for a while now. for the uninitiated, a vertical tasting is two or more wines of the same varietal, in this case pinot noir, from consecutive years, from the same vineyard. i have been holding three different years from styring vineyards, a small producer of exceptional wines in the willamette valley in oregon. this is one of my favorite areas for pinot noir. the three years i will be comparing will be '03, '04, and '05. all three of these wines are not grown on the estate as the first plantings had not yet matured yet. they are all from the valley and this area produces some of the finest pinot noir in the country, if not the world, in my opinion. styring is now producing estate grown pinots as of the 2006 release. i hope to have a bottle of the '06 soon to also compare to these other three. for more info on styring, visit their website http://www.styringvineyards.com/