Maloof Where Ya PJs At?

Bee and Ross Maloof founded their label in 2015 — she a former aerospace materials engineer, he a veteran of Philadelphia's most serious dining rooms — and the combination shows in everything they bottle: technical precision married to genuine hospitality. In late 2019 they purchased No Clos Radio, a farm on the northwest edge of the Willamette Valley near Forest Grove that holds some of Oregon's oldest self-rooted Pinot Gris, planted in 1971 on Jory volcanic and Laurelwood soils. They converted the property to certified organic in 2020, dry-farm select parcels, and work with native yeasts, neutral oak, and no additions — no fining, no filtration, no sulfur. It's a queer-led estate that operates well off the beaten path of Oregon wine, and one that has quietly become a benchmark for what low-intervention winemaking can achieve when the farming is this good.

A blend of skin-contact Pinot Gris and barrel-fermented Riesling, this pours a hazy copper-salmon. The nose opens on dried cherry candy and white peach with soft herbal and floral edges. The palate is bone-dry and vividly bright — cranberry-toned acidity running the length of it, a light brush of skin tannin giving grip and texture, and a clean, saline mineral finish. At 11.5% alcohol it stays weightless without ever feeling thin.

A skin-contact wine with the structure of a serious white — endlessly drinkable, and one of the best values in Oregon's natural wine canon.