Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2023 Pinot Noir Estate Vineyard Old Vine is the flagship wine of Patricia Green Cellars. Spicy notes of cedar, cinnamon, wildflowers, hay, and berries lead into a medium-bodied, savory palate. It’s focused and mouthwatering, with fine tannins, dusty earth, and a long finish. Fantastic. Drink 2025-2040.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Matured in 10% new oak, the 2023 Pinot Noir Estate Vineyard Old Vine has intense aromas of blackberry, blueberry, mushroom, earth and soaring violet perfume. The full-bodied palate is concentrated yet nuanced with fine, chalky tannins, vibrant acidity and a long, latent finish. It will benefit from time in the cellar.
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.”
Ribbon Ridge is a regular span of uplifted, marine, sedimentary soils (called Willakenzie), whose highest ridge elevations twist like a ribbon. An early settler from Missouri named Colby Carter noticed this unique topography and gave the region its name in 1865—though it wasn’t declared its own AVA until 140 years later, in 2005. The AVA is enclosed by mountains on all sides between Yamhill-Carlton and the Chehalem Mountains, and is actually part of the larger Chehalem Mountains AVA. Its soils have a finer texture than its neighbors with parent materials composed of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. Given its presence of natural aquifers in this five square mile area, most vineyards are actually easily dry farmed!