A Wine That Doesn’t Age, and You Shouldn’t Let It

The Marigny Pinot Noir Carbonic Maceration, 2024

Bottle image courtesy of The Marigny Wines

The Marigny Pinot Noir Carbonic Maceration
Varietal: Pinot Noir
Region: Willamette Valley, Oregon
Year: 2024
Price: $29
Available from The Marigny

I have an interesting relationship with time. There’s part of me that watches each passing minute like it owes me money, and another part that still feels quietly embarrassed when my brain thinks of 2019 as “last year.” I rarely know what day of the week it is, and there’s only one hour between 10PM and 4AM, but I always call the restaurant to let them know we’re running two minutes behind. The phrase “long days, fast years” comes to mind, but it’s something else, more like “long emails, fast decades.” Time is something I’ve always felt I’ve had too much of or never enough.

Wine always transcended that for me, though. Vintage year, whatever, didn’t matter. It could be from last year or it could be from 1991—what mattered was where it took me. One bottle might drop me into a dusty sunroom with a teak bar ca…