An intersection of quality and price that exists in the rarified air of Pinot Noir producers, this reluctant grape thrives in the shared latitude of Willamette Valley and the Cotes d’Or, but without the storied and bloody past of the latter.

Nestled in Dayton, Oregon, Stoller Family Vineyards, if you scratch the surface of Willamette Pinot Noir, will come up rather quickly in conversation. The namesake vineyard has been supplying fruit to the likes of Chehalem (their sister winery) and Argyle (for inclusion in arguably the region’s greatest Blanc de Noir) for years now. And like the path most growers follow, at some point they cannot resist the urge to bottle their own fruit.

Stoller’s current release, the 2004 Estate Pinot Noir, is a Dundee Hills bottling that will give you an incredible array of sensory detail in a glass. First, you notice the color of true garnet, then the aromatics of cedar, crushed red berry fruit backed up by your cuisine-framing components of smoke, leather, humidor, and Asian spices. And that’s just giving it a good whiff.

The real treat, of course, comes in the first exploratory taste, where those lovely red fruit notes go dark on you, giving you a black cherry, plum, and blackberry bath with those same smoky aromatics now on your palate, accompanied by soft florals, some real deep chocolate and a pleasing minerality. You finish your glass to find the acidity, the alcohol, the fruit – all perfectly balanced in some triune way.

There are few wines that can truly be called a “crowd pleaser,” but if you wanted a bottle that could handle the desires and wants of the Big Cabernet drinkers, still offer the oenological grace to accompany most any meal, and leave all the “non-reds” scrambling for the bottle, the 2004 release of Stoller Estate is the one. With only 602 cases made, it will not be floor stacked at the local liquor store, but it will be available to those who seek it out.

Elegance and simplicity: Good Pinot.