Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Another amazing pinot noir that shows such purity of the fruit. Blueberries, raspberries, lemons, oranges and hints of caramel. Medium to full body, an incredibly polished texture and a beautiful, exciting finish.
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Tasting Panel
Dotted with salinity and strawberry on the nose. Some earthy notes and pencil shavings alongside dusty rose petals, raspberry, and mulberry. Silky, clean, bright, and long.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale ruby-purple colored, the 2015 Roserock Pinot Noir is a little closed at this youthful stage, offering delicate red cherry and raspberry leaf notes over hints of black pepper and lavender. Medium-bodied, the palate offers firm, chewy tannins and a lively backbone to support the red berry and cedar-laced flavors, finishing long with a nice toastiness.
Rating: 92+ -
Wine Enthusiast
This new Domaine Drouhin Oregon label has increased drastically in production—a real boon for consumers, given its modest pricepoint. Still quite young, it shows tightly wound, compact cranberry, raspberry and red plum flavors, with plenty of supporting acidity. Give it ample aeration if you plan to drink it before 2020.
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Wine Spectator
Harmonious and well-built, with expressive pomegranate and cherry flavors accented by bay leaf and spice notes. Drink now through 2024.
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.”
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.