I just delivered a case of our restaurant-only bottling to Portland restaurant and wine bar Noble Rot yesterday. Starting this evening, they’re featuring the 2011 Vincent Pinot Noir Willamette Valley in a flight of Portland-made Pinot Noirs.

The inspiration for the Pinot flight is the new PDX Urban WIneries Passport. Noble Rot is one of the partners featured in the Passport, along with two dozen other local restaurants, wine shops and other cool outfits all around Portland.

You don’t need to have the Passport to enjoy Noble Rot’s Pinot flight. They’re just (rightfully) excited about the whole thing and thought it would be fun to make their regular Pinot flight a special feature of wines made right here in the city of Portland. And we’re happy they wanted to include Vincent WIne Company.

As for the wine, our 2011 Willamette Valley Pinot is just a two barrel blend for restaurants. The idea is to price a wine low enough to be attractive for pouring by the glass, but there’s nothing else low priced about it, if you know what we mean. The wine is a blend of Armstrong and Bjornson vineyards on Ribbon Ridge and the Eola Hills, respectively. Enough said, right? It’s typical of our 2011s, elegant and graceful.

It’s also a little painful because there’s really no reason the wine should exist, other than to sell at something of a giveaway price so you can enjoy it in some of my favorite places around town – Noble Rot, Simpatica, and soon Ken’s Artisan Pizza. The exposure we get is worth it, and Noble Rot’s stunning view of the Portland skyline makes good wine taste even better. Get down there and ask for the Portland Pinot flight. Noble Rot is located at E Burnside between 11th and 12th, up on the top floor of the building.