Forty years of friendship informs Caballus Cellars, a joint project between two of Oregon’s most esteemed winemakers, Véronique Boss-Drouhin of Domaine Drouhin Oregon and Roserock Oregon, and Isabelle Dutartre of De Ponte Cellars.
To some degree, the diversity and excellence of Oregon wines makes comparisons to Old World styles irrelevant. But those factors should not undercut the influence French-born and trained winemakers have had on the state’s success.
I love the Caballus pinot noirs crafted by Véronique Boss-Drouhin and Isabelle Dutarte, who are nearly lifelong friends and have finally had the opportunity to make wine together. Their Caballus Pinot Noir is sourced from vineyards in both the Dundee Hills and Eola-Amity Hills AVAs, so the wine carries the moniker of Willamette Valley on the label. The wine is fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged in one-third new oak for fifteen months prior to bottling. The ladies’ 2017 Pinot Noir comes in at 13.6 percent octane and reveals a beautifully complex and refined aromatic constellation of red and black cherries, plums, raw cocoa, woodsmoke, gamebird, a complex base of soil tones, roses and a delicate framing of new oak. On the palate the wine is pure, elegant and full-bodied, with a sappy core of fruit, fine-grained, seamless tannins, lovely focus and grip and a long, complex and impeccably balanced finish. This is so elegantly structured that it is certainly possible to drink the wine today, but it is still quite primary in personality and far more complexity will emerge if a bit of patience is exercised and the wine is given some hibernation time in the cellar. 2030-2080
This is a relatively new, small collaboration between Véronique Drouhin and Isabelle Dutartre, (only five casks of wine produced), with 2013 being the first vintage of Caballus. Isabelle Dutartre was the former assistant to long-time Joseph Drouhin Cellar Master, Laurence Jobard for a decade, before moving out to Oregon to be the winemaker at Deponte Winery. She and Véronique have been friends since their university days. Fruit for this bottling hails from both the Dundee Hills and Eola-Amity Hills AVAs, hence the Willamette Valley moniker on the label. In this vintage the bunches were entirely destemmed and the wine was raised in twenty percent new oak. The 2015 Caballus pinot comes in at 14.2 percent octane and delivers a lovely aromatic constellation of red and black cherries, cocoa powder, gamebird, a complex base of soil tones, woodsmoke, a touch of fresh thyme and cedary oak. On the palate the wine is bright, fullbodied, focused and complex, with a lovely core, excellent soil signature, tangy acids, ripe, buried tannins and a long, very well-balanced and promising finish. At six years of age, this iscertainly quite approachable today, but it still has plenty of growth ahead of it and I would tuck it away in the cellar until it is at least twelve to fifteen years of age, so that one can enjoy all of the secondary layers of complexity that will come with bottle age. 2027-2065.
