Tan Fruit from the Maresh Family
This week, we are excited to bring you the highly anticipated new releases from Tan Fruit, a brand-new project from Jim Maresh, proprietor of his family winery, Arterberry Maresh.
Jim has a storied history as winemaker behind some of the most exciting Chardonnays in the Willamette Valley. Much of the fruit for the Arterberry Maresh wines are sourced from older estate vines, and very few cases are made each year. In 2019, Maresh founded Tan Fruit, for which he purchases fruit. "I hear about fruit for sale that I'd love to play with," he explains. "It doesn't work for Arterberry, but for Tan Fruit, there are no rules." He made six cuvées this initial vintage, and unsurprisingly, they are some of the best Chardonnays of 2019.
Vojtilla is a small, four-acre vineyard in the Chehalem Mountains that sits at around 500 to 600 feet in elevation and, says Jim Maresh, is influenced by the nearby Willamette River. The 2019 Vojtilla Vineyard comes from Dijon clone vines planted in 1991, and it was matured in about 25% new Damy barrels. It has a stunning perfume of quince paste and mushrooms, pastry and flowers, and the palate is satiny, plush and pure, with a seamless tangy streak and long, powerful finish. 97 - Erin Brooks, The Wine Advocate.
Maresh Vineyard comes from Dijon clones planted in 1991, and it was matured in about 35% new oak. This vintage is pure and tensile, with scents of tarragon and fragrant herbs, beeswax and almonds, with plush white peach fruit. The palate combines intense ripe fruit with a spine of tangy, tense acidity, and it finishes with tremendous length. Allow it another 3-5 years in bottle. 97 - Erin Brooks, The Wine Advocate.
Oak Grove Vineyard has a unique personality that combines powerful exotic fruit with tangy energy and a shimmery saline quality, derived from a year's maturation in barrel and then stainless steel. Guava, peaches, lilac and beeswax aromas burst from the glass, and the textural palate, which continues to change and evolve as it spends time in the glass, demands your attention with its rich but precise fruit. This unabashedly hedonistic Chardonnay has the intensity and energy to age well, but that youthful, gregarious fruit is hard to resist! 98 - Erin Brooks, The Wine Advocate.
Tank Fruit comes from the same Oak Grove fruit as that vineyard designate, but was aged a bit longer, with 12 months in oak and another 12 months in stainless steel. It is pure, ultra-perfumed, intense and layered, with alluring white peaches and lilac interwoven with cashews and honeycomb on the nose. The palate derives incredible energy from the push-pull of those deeper tones with salty, energetic acidity, and it finishes with extraordinary length. 99 - Erin Brooks, The Wine Advocate
