Winemaker Notes
The nose reveals ripe red strawberries, marionberries, and blueberry jam, with hints of French tarragon, dark chocolate truffle, and a savory bouquet garni. On the palate, this medium-bodied wine delivers bright red fruits like cranberry, black raspberry, purple plum, and red apples, with the ripe strawberry notes following through. A lovely Oregonian seasonal fruit bowl. The wine’s balanced structure and delightful succulence harmonized with lasting acidity and remarkable salinity derived from the sandy soils at many of the source vineyards. Delightful light oak spice nuances, such as vanilla seeds, toasted coffee, and forest aromas add further to the depth.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2023 Pinot Noir Cumberland Reserve opens with aromas of raspberry liqueur, mocha, floral perfume, and savory notes of fresh sage. Medium-bodied, it offers ripe, detailed tannins, balanced acidity, and a long finish. While this vintage hints at opulence, the wine remains beautifully balanced and refreshing. It’s a stunning introduction to the vintage and a benchmark for the region as an appellation wine.
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James Suckling
Bright and seductive, this pinot offers fresh cherries, crushed wild berries, violets, wet rocks and subtle spices on the nose. Racy and mouthwatering, with spicy and minerally tension, it has a medium body, a dusty texture to its tannins and a lingering and racy finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Pinot Noir Cumberland Reserve is a blend from Bergström’s five estate vineyards plus some purchased fruit, matured for 10 months. It has alluring aromas of strawberry, raspberry, forest floor and earthy undertones. The medium-bodied palate is bursting with bright, spicy fruit. It’s framed by soft, chalky tannins and mouthwatering acidity and has a long, bright finish.
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Vinous
The 2023 Pinot Noir Cumberland Reserve is incredibly fresh, with a bouquet of dusty dried flowers, lavender pastille, nuances of cedary spice and wild blueberries. Ripe wild berry fruits and crisp mineral tones glide across the palate over a layer of pure silk. The finish is long and tense, yet remains remarkably fresh as violet tones resonate over a bed of silken tannins. The Cumberland Reserve represents amazing value.
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Wine Spectator
Generous yet silky in texture and refined, with lilting raspberry and guava flavors that are accented by fresh violet, orange peel and dusky spice notes as this gathers richness on the lively finish.
Bergstrom Wines is a family-owned and operated artisan producer of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay which was started in 1999 by Dr. John and Karen Bergstrom, with the help of their son Josh Bergstrom and his wife Caroline. Josh is general manager, vineyard manager and winemaker and pulls his expertise from his education in Burgundy, France and his 14 years experience making wines in Oregon's Northern Willamette Valley. Bergstrom focuses on hand-crafting small lots of wines from their fice estate vineyards carefully chosen from fice of Oregon's six wine-growing appellations. All estate acreage is farmed biodynamically and all wines express the wonderful diversity of Oregon's many great terroirs.
Bergström Wines consists of five estate vineyards totaling 84 acres that span across four of the Willamette Valley’s best appellations: The Bergström Vineyard, Silice Vineyard, Winery Block, Gregory Ranch and Le Pré du Col. Each estate vineyard is farmed without the use of harsh chemicals, systemic or fertilizers, and the winery produces approximately 10,000 cases of ultra-premium and extremely sought-after wine each year, including two Chardonnays and nine different Pinot Noirs.
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.