Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Rich, powerful and gorgeous, drenched in fruity, savory, mushroomy flavors on a full body and super-smooth tannins. It is deep in black cherry, blackcurrant, cedar and pine character that expands on the palate and lingers in the finish. Drink or hold.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A touch more saturated red in color, the 2023 Pinot Noir Laurène is deeper and more layered in the glass, with notes of pine, sage, ripe cherries, fresh leather, and pressed floral perfume. It has a refined and plush texture, with ripe tannins and elegant notes of dark earth. Drink 2025-2040.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Pinot Noir Laurène has dramatically opening scents of black cherry, blueberry, tobacco, damp earth and garrigue. The medium-bodied palate is powerfully styled, matching concentrated, nuanced flavors with seamlessly integrated oak spice. It’s structured by velvety tannins and mouthwatering acidity and has a long, latent finish.
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Wine Spectator
Precise and vibrant, with sleek flavors of cherry and raspberry highlighted by stony mineral and black tea accents as this gathers richness toward refined tannins Drink now through 2034.
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.