Winemaker Notes
This glass opens with a complex and aromatic nose of cherry, cigar, miso and a bright hint of orange bitters. Layers of bakers' chocolate, pine sap and molasses cookie contribute to a spiced bouquet. An inviting mid-palate balances sweetness with focused tannins. Briny accents emerge in the mouth alongside indulgent flavors that call to mind maple pecan sticky buns.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Attractive notes of crushed dark berries, blueberries and wild berries with an array of spices, mint, chocolate and dried orange peel. A little earthy. Very refined, with freshness and poise. Medium- to full-bodied with juicy, mouth-filling fruit that has a savory, spicy edge to it.
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Wine Enthusiast
Blackcap raspberries and dark chocolate team up in perfumed fashion with floral notes oflilacs and rose petals. Peppy acidity and integrated tannins then provide a suitable frame for this wine’s tartBing cherry and cranberry flavor combination. Behindthat tangy fruit lurk notes of black tea, sage, and cedar.Pair with duck ragù over polenta and any Siouxsie andthe Banshees. Editor’s Choice.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Pinot Noir Reserve Estate Grown is bursting with cranberry, rhubarb, charcuterie and woodsy undertones. The medium-bodied palate is silky and seamless. Its layered flavors are matched by generous new oak spice, and it has a long, spicy finish.
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Wine Spectator
A handsomely structured version, with deep flavors of raspberry and guava that take on cinnamon, savory spice and forest floor accents as this gathers tension toward medium-grained tannins. Drink now through 2033.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Pouring a deeper saturated red color, the 2021 Pinot Noir Reserve is more inward on opening, with deep notes of forest floor, umami undertones, dried black cherries, and spiced red plums. It has an earthy and toasted profile on the palate, with a full-bodied frame, although it’s never heavy. It is a brooding wine with a wintry sensibility to drink over the next 5-6 years.
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.”
The Chehalem Mountains is a northwest-southeast span of several distinct mountains, ridges and peaks in the northern part of the Willamette Valley. Of all of Willamette Valley's smaller AVAs, it is closest to the city of Portland. Its highest summit, Bald Peak at an elevation of 1,633 feet, serves to generate cooler air for the rest of the AVA and its hillside vineyards. The region covers 70,000 acres but only 1,600 acres are planted to vines; soils of the Chehalem Mountains are a mix of basalt, ocean sediment and loess.