Winemaker Notes
The 2023 Dundee Hills Reserve Pinot Noir is chock-full of concentrated aromas of baked cherry, marionberry, and baking spice. A pure expression of the terroir, this wine has a refreshing acidity, delicate, fine-grained tannins, and a persistent, elegant finish.
Enjoy this wine alongside cured meats, summer salads, and mild cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Graceful yet richly structured, with expressive flavors of raspberry and guava framed by fresh violet, orange peel and zesty cinnamon tones as this glides on the lasting finish. Drink now through 2034.
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James Suckling
An elegant and balanced wine with red and black cherry, pine forest and pine duff aromas. On the palate there’s pleasing weight, with orange peel, bright and tart red fruit, chalky tannins and a mouthwatering finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromatically, this reserve wine is a big bowl of blueberries garnished with dried rose petals and fresh sprigs of mint. Flavors like sweet raspberry jam, cranberry, orange peel, and chrysanthemum tea are complemented by a nice balance of alcohol, fruit, acidity, and tannins. The wine's elegant, silky texture is quite enjoyable.
Named for the four daughters of the founders, The Four Graces are sustainably farmed, well-tended vineyards with the goal of producing rich, elegant, delicious, and complex wines.
The Black family purchased an existing vineyard in the Dundee Hills of the Willamette Valley in 2003 as a family retreat. They immediately began turning the estate into a sustainably farmed, well-tended vineyard with the goal of producing rich, elegant, delicious and complex wines.
That same year, The Four Graces was founded. The winery is named in honor of the Black’s four daughters.
In 2005 the Black’s purchased the Doe Ridge property in Yamhill-Carlton to continue the growth of the brand. They chose a site in a differing appellation to add complexity and variety.
This vineyard has been turned into one of the largest experiments of its kind with forty acres farmed sustainably through the L.I.V.E (low impact viticulture and enology) program.
Today,The Four Graces is owned by Bill Foley and produces Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Blanc renowned nationally and internationally for their balance, elegance, complexity, and richness. The wines are crafted under the guidance of Marc Myer’s who has been in the industry since 2008 and believes both the Dundee and Yamhill-Carlton estates are stunning at first glance and he can’t wait to work with the fruit that comes off of these properties.
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.