A relatively high-toned and attractively perfumed nose offers up a top note of menthol along with a pretty blend of both red and dark pinot fruit, spice and briar scents. The delicious, vibrant and appealingly textured medium weight flavors possess good focus and length on the solidly complex finish where the only nit is a touch of warmth. At 5 years of age, this isn't yet seductive but I like the style as well as what the wine has to say. Note that while this lovely effort could easily be enjoyed now, I would be inclined to hold it for a few more years first. *Outstanding*

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, full-bodied, 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 is certainly 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.