This week we’re especially lucky to have in stock not just one wine from Cameron Winery, but three. There’s a handful wineries I count as my all-time favourites above all else, and one of those is definitely Cameron Winery in Dundee, Oregon.
At least in North America, I see Cameron as the penultimate winemaker’s winery…a kind of artist’s artist, or musician’s musician. A Townes Van Zant, John Prine, or Robert Johnson figure that the mainstream doesn’t know, but is followed by and has influenced so many other greats. And maybe it’s better that the mainstream doesn’t know, because they make very little wine and if the Kardashian-Jenner crowd started tagging them on Instagram it would become even harder to get any allocations. It may not be a commercial household name, or a 100 point wine, or a Top 100 list wine in the magazines, but that doesn’t matter at ll. Those who know, know. In my experience it’s been mostly other winemakers and the real legit Pinot and Chard geeks that go crazy for Cameron. Not the Belle Glos or Domaine Serene crowds, but the Coche-Dury and Raveneau folks. His wines are not at all showy or ostentatious, but have subtle complexities in a way that’s much more rare these days from new world wines. But I guess that’s a direct result of the dedication to terroir with dry-farming, organic viticulture, wild yeasts, and the traditional Burgundian production techniques used by Cameron founder/winemaker/owner, John Paul.
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