Winemaker Notes
Ken Wright Cellars Pinot Noir produced from this region displays savory spicy and floral qualities and a lush textural palate. Tart cherry andbramble fruits mingle with spice notes of cinnamon, clove, and cola.Elegant and focused on the palate with a balanced structure on thefinish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Fresh and full of energy, with multilayered raspberry and pomegranate flavors that take of accents of cardamom and black tea as this gathers tension toward refined tannins. Drink now through 2032. 3,021 cases made.
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James Suckling
Aromas of cherries and blueberries with hints of cocoa and licorice on the nose. Polished and textural on the palate with a medium body and dusty tannins. Hints of wet stones at the end.
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.