Panther Creek Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir 1999
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2009-
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Located in the heart of the Willamette Valley, Panther Creek Cellars has been producing signature Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay wines since 1986. The winery has been recognized for its signature blends as well as single vineyard designate wines.
“Panther Creek has a storied history and I’m eager to build on that legacy,” says Tony Rynders, winemaker. “I have been making wine in Oregon for almost 20 years, and I look forward to beginning this chapter with one of Oregon’s most established Pinot Noir producers, founded by one of the wine industry’s great heroes, Ken Wright.”
Our goal, in making Panther Creek wine, is simple: We hope that each wine will express the personality of its vintage and character of its vineyard. This expressiveness is the essence of great Oregon Pinot Noir. Our wines are crafted to complement a variety of foods, as well as be enjoyed on their own. We believe that great Pinot Noir can be enjoyed as a young, fresh wine that showcases ripe, sweet fruit, as well as an older, mature wine that features unparalleled complexity and beauty.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.