2024 St. Reginald Parish “The Marigny” Super Deluxe Cuvée Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, USA

The Moment

Some Pinot Noirs are built around softness.
Others are built around momentum.

The 2024 St. Reginald Parish “The Marigny” Super Deluxe Cuvée Pinot Noir feels like a bottle made to keep moving — bright, crunchy, lightly stony, and easy to love without ever feeling generic. The current winery notes for the Super Deluxe Cuvée point to a style shaped by carbonic maceration and restrained oak, while the recent Marigny language around this wine emphasizes red fruit, fine-grained tannin, graphite, and stones. The result is a Pinot that feels lively and a little irreverent, but still put together enough for a real dinner table.

This is very much in The Marigny lane: Pinot Noir with a semi-carbonic sensibility, organic farming, and a house style that values energy over weight. The winery’s 2024 page also includes its own unusually human descriptors — things like a worn-in flannel shirt and marionberry pie — which says a lot about the intent here. This is not meant to be solemn Pinot. It is meant to be delicious, textural, and just serious enough underneath the fun.

What It Feels Like

Think burgers on the table, music on in the background, somebody staying for one more glass, and a Pinot that makes the room feel a little more relaxed without ever disappearing into the background.

What makes this wine work is the balance: red-fruited and vivid up front, but with enough fine tannin and mineral detail to keep it from reading simple. The winery’s own production notes show why — carbonic maceration in stainless steel and concrete, followed by élevage in mostly older French oak barrels, which tends to preserve brightness while rounding the edges. That is exactly the sort of structure that makes a wine feel playful and polished at the same time.

In the Glass

Aromatics
Red fruit, raspberry-toned brightness, graphite, and stony mineral lift. This is based on the winery’s recent Super Deluxe Cuvée description and current 2024 release framing.

Palate
Crunchy red fruit with fine tannin, mineral energy, and a little more shape than the wine first lets on.

Texture
Light- to medium-bodied, lively, and finely structured, with carbonic freshness and a smooth, easy flow.

Finish
Fresh, stony, and quietly savory, with red fruit and mineral notes lingering together. This finish summary is an interpretation from the winery’s style notes and published descriptors.

Why We Love This Bottle

Pinot With Personality
This is not polished into sameness. The carbonic component, organic farming, and mineral edge give it a brighter, more alive personality than many straightforward Willamette Pinots.

A Crowd-Pleaser That Still Has Shape
The winery describes the cuvée as a ready-to-drink crowd pleaser that can still “dress to impress,” which is a very good summary of why this works so well in a shop setting.

Built For The Table, Not The Pedestal
The winery’s own pairing language — crock-pot cooking, sweater weather, cheeseburgers — tells you everything about the intended mood here. This is a bottle for actual life.

Pair It With

• Cheeseburgers
• Roast chicken
• Mushroom pizza
• Salmon
• Braised comfort food

These pairings are based on the winery’s own suggestions plus the wine’s red-fruited, mineral, lightly carbonic style.

Technical Notes

Producer: St. Reginald Parish / The Marigny
Region: Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA
Grape: Pinot Noir
Viticulture: One site certified organic by Oregon Tilth, with three additional sites farmed organically without certification.

Winemaking: 12–14 days of carbonic maceration in stainless steel and concrete; all lots pressed to French oak, mostly older neutral barrels with some 2nd- and 3rd-fill oak; SO2 added after malolactic; assembled and racked to stainless steel two weeks before bottling without additional SO2.

Serving Temperature: 55°–65°F.

Body: Light-Medium
Structure: Fine-grained tannins · lively acidity · mineral finish
This structural summary is based on the winery’s tasting and production notes.

Flavor Profile
Red Fruit · Graphite · Stones · Mineral Earth

Drink Window
Now–2029
That window is my recommendation based on the wine’s carbonic handling, fresh-fruited style, and ready-to-drink positioning.

2021 Day Wines “Johan Vineyards” Pinot Noir, Van Duzer Corridor, USA

The Moment

Some Pinot Noirs are built around softness.
Others are built around nerve.

The 2021 Day Wines “Johan Vineyards” Pinot Noir is the kind of Oregon Pinot that feels lifted, structured, and quietly intense — less about plushness, more about detail. Day describes the site as an 85-acre, Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyard in the Van Duzer Corridor, shaped by coastal wind, marine sediment, volcanic loam, and flood-strewn basalt and granite. That combination shows up in the glass as both fruit and mineral tension.

The winery’s own featured note from Vinous captures the style well: vibrant red fruit, floral and baking spice aromas, then juicy raspberry and cherry with botanical herbs, cola, candied lavender, and a long, spicy finish. Wine Enthusiast adds another angle, describing dried rose petals, jasmine, lavender, boysenberry, tart cherry, blood orange, firm tannin, and what it memorably calls “electric fence acidity.” This is Pinot with energy, shape, and a real sense of place.

What It Feels Like

Think roast duck, low light, a slower dinner, and a bottle that keeps opening as the night goes on.

What makes this wine compelling is the balance between perfume and structure. It starts with raspberry, cherry, and flowers, then moves into herbs, spice, citrus lift, and a mineral edge that feels very Van Duzer. Day notes that Johan is often their last Pinot pick of harvest because of the corridor’s cool, windy conditions, and that late-ripening profile helps explain why the wine feels both vivid and serious at once.

In the Glass

Aromatics
Red fruit, floral lift, baking spice, dried rose, jasmine, lavender, and mineral detail.

Palate
Juicy raspberry, cherry, tart cherry, blood orange, botanical herbs, cola, and candied lavender.

Texture
Medium-bodied and sleek, with smoothly interwoven tannins and lively, high-toned acidity.

Finish
Long, spicy, savory, and mineral, with floral and cherry notes echoing through the close.

Why We Love This Bottle

A Pinot With Lift And Backbone
This is not soft-focus Pinot. It has perfume and red fruit, but the structure is very much part of the appeal.

Van Duzer Character Comes Through
The site’s winds, marine sediment, volcanic loam, and biodynamic farming all point toward a wine with freshness, tension, and mineral nuance rather than simple richness.

For People Who Like Their Pinot A Little More Serious
Between the whole-cluster component, native fermentation, long élevage, and no fining or filtering, this feels like a bottle with intent.

Pair It With

• Roast duck
• Salmon
• Mushroom dishes
• Pork loin
• Lentils with herbs

These are my pairing recommendations based on the wine’s red-fruited, floral, herbal, and mineral profile with firm acidity and fine structure.

Technical Notes

Producer: Day Wines
Vineyard: Johan Vineyards
Region: Van Duzer Corridor AVA, Oregon, USA
Grape: 100% Pinot Noir
Alcohol: 13.3%
pH: 3.44
TA: 6.0 g/L

Winemaking: Sorted into small-lot fermenters with 30% whole cluster and the balance destemmed; no sulfur added at the destemmer; native yeast fermentation encouraged; pressed into 80% neutral and 20% new French oak barrels and puncheons; aged 17 months; only free-run barrels used; limited sulfur after malolactic and before bottling; no fining or filtering.

Body: Medium
Structure: Fine tannins · bright acidity · long mineral-spice finish
This structural summary is based on the winery’s tech sheet and published tasting notes.

Flavor Profile
Raspberry · Cherry · Dried Rose · Botanical Herbs · Cola · Candied Lavender · Blood Orange · Spice

Drink Window
Now–2036