Winemaker Notes
The VGR is the flagship Pinot Noir Willamette Valley blend to showcase the imprint of the vintage from 00 Wines.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Transparent and minerally, showing dark-cherry and forest-floor aromas with some ink and blood undertones. Medium-bodied with beautiful integration and excellent length that goes on for minutes. Firm tannins. Vivid. From ungrafted vines planted in the 1970s.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Pinot Noir VGR is pure and expressive, with blackberry and blueberry mingling with grapefruit, licorice, spice and mushroom. The medium-bodied palate is youthfully coiled with a focus on earth and mineral at this stage. It’s structured by firm, grainy tannins and bright acidity and has a long finish. Rating: 93+
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Vinous
The 2023 Pinot Noir VGR entices with a cooling, minty freshness up front that gives way to citrus-kissed strawberries, a hint of cola and autumnal spice. A pretty inner sweetness opens on the palate, balanced by tart wildberry fruits and zesty acidity as violet inner florals swirl throughout. The finish shows excellent length and is loaded with tension, just gently tannic, as the mouth waters for more while a twang of tart blackberry fades. Good luck keeping your hands off the 2023 VGR, as it’s a showboat today.
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.