Honoring Jacques Lardière, International Pinot Noir Celebration
In it’s 26th year, the International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) brings together 70 Pinot Noir producers from all over the world to meet in Willamette Valley, share their wines with each other and the public, and to learn from each other the intricacies of the delicate, elegant grape.
This year Maison Louis Jadot stands as a featured Burgundy producer as its famed wine maker, Jacques Lardière, prepares to retire. Recognized as one of the best of his generation in Burgundy, Lardière brings with him to IPNC a vertical retrospective reaching from 1989 through 2005.
To open the IPNC 2012 celebration, Salud! offered a fund raiser dinner that included two vintages of Lardière’s wines, along side a meal from Nostrana chef Cathy Whims, and Pinot Noir wines of Oregon and California.
After the meal, Jacques Lardière spoke.
“The 1990 vintage, it was what we knew we could work with. People made very good wine. 1993 though, no one expected it to do anything. It was like 1983 had been. In 1983, we had a crazy Spring; maturation, planting was very bad. It was hard to know how much to take off, and how much to keep. So, we make these wines.
“But, time, it is something important to prove. In it we will know these wines. [How they do] it is something about the ground. In Burgundy, we do not speak about the grapes. We speak about the ground, the place where the grape grows.
“Then, whether the decision works. When you have something, wine, coming all from one place, the decisions you make, they come to the top. If it shows like that, it means you missed something along the way. But in the vineyard, with the place, you have the full decision along the way in the process, and then you do not add [to the wine after]. So, the wine, it shows your decisions.
“Tasting a vertical, it is to understand this work about the wine making process. From what place the wine is coming. It is the ground, the place. The more you have the minerals [in the ground, and in the wine], the more you have the life in the wine.” –Jacques Lardière
Maison Louis Jadot 1990 ‘Clos St. Jacques’ Premier Cru; Maison Louis Jadot 1993 Bonnes Mares Grand Cru
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Northwest grassfed beef bresaola, Ayers Creek loganberries, figs, minted crème fraiche
Tails and Trotters porchetta in arista, salsa verde, gigande beans, roasted summer squash
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Thank you to Jacques Lardière.
Thank you to Cathy Whims, and to her chef staff. Also, to the IPNC Maitre d’Hotel Captains, and serving staff.
Thank you to Donna Morris and Bill Sweat of Winderlea Vineyard and Winery, to Milla Handley of Handley Cellars, and to Salud.
Thank you to IPNC, IPNC staff and volunteers, and specifically Amy Wesselman.
Thank you to Lindsay Coon.
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