Winemaker Notes
The Pinot Noirs from Freedom Hill Vineyard are on a roll. Both the 2019 and the upcoming 2020 are beautiful examples from this great site. The 2019 Pinot Noir Freedom Hill has dense spice and broad dark fruit aromas. On the palate there are dark red fruits balanced by ripe tannins. These flavors slowly meld into exotic sweet earthy notes.
Built for richly flavored dishes and always my pick for grilled or roasted red meats, it is also lovely with chocolate desserts.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
I have rarely encountered such a spicy nose filled with za’atarlike spices ranging from dried sumac and cumin to marjoram and sesame seeds. If all of that isn’t enough for you, the wine’s sandalwood and blackberry aromas are also pretty nifty. Bright cherry and lemon flavors flanked by crispy acidity bring it all home.
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James Suckling
Notes of chocolate-coated red berries with ground spices, dried citrus rind and raw mushrooms. It’s full and creamy on the palate, with tight tannins and dense, fleshy dark fruit on the mid-palate. Meaty and muscular and little chewy at the end.
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Wine & Spirits
This pinot is compact and sleek when first poured, the caramel and tobacco aromas forming a frame around spiced red cherry. As it opens, a cool savor comes through in the firm, earthy tannins. For a lean cut of steak.
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Wine Spectator
Savory and graceful, with multilayered cherry and cranberry flavors accented by green tea and forest floor notes as this moves toward refined tannins. Drink now through 2030. 1,117 cases made.
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.