WillaKenzie Estate Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2019
-
Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
This expressive Pinot Noir offers notes of boysenberry, blackberry, and red raspberry. Those flavors carry through to a juicy and intense palate that finishes with great vibrancy, purity, and length.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Lively and vibrant, with fresh cherry and rhubarb flavors accented by green tea and spice. Lingers on the supple finish. Drink now through 2030.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley has a medium ruby color and scents of cranberries and orange peel with accents of potpourri, dried tobacco, shiitake mushroom and earth. The medium-bodied palate has an alluring, dusty texture, energetic bursts of acidity highlighting citrus and tea leaf character, and it closes with a very long finish. This vintage, most of the fruit was sourced from Willakenzie's estate vineyards in Yamhill-Carlton, with just 30% coming from the Dundee Hills.
Other Vintages
2021-
James
Suckling
-
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Spectator
-
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Spectator
-
Robert
Parker -
Wilfred
Wong
-
Wine
Spectator -
Wine
Enthusiast
-
Wine
Spectator
-
Wine
Spectator
-
Wine &
Spirits -
Wine
Spectator
-
Wine
Enthusiast
-
Wine
Spectator
WillaKenzie Estate is located in Oregon's Willamette Valley on rolling hillsides in the Chehalem Mountains. The winery was named after the Willakenzie soil on which the vineyards are planted to convey the influence that the soil imparts on the wine's flavors and aromas. The vineyards are planted with grapes of the Pinot family, mostly new Dijon clones of Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris from Alsace. Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris are cool climate grapes, which are particularly well adapted to Oregon. As winemaker for WillaKenzie Estate, the acclaimed producer of single-vineyard Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris, Erik Kramer leads all winemaking and cellar
operations. He has been working in Oregon’s Willamette Valley since 2004, where he has built a reputation for world-class wines of finesse and balance. A scientist by training, Erik worked as a hydrogeologist in the petrochemical industry before combining his passion for science and appreciation for fine wine into a career. He spent a few seasons in Washington as a harvest cellar worker before
pursuing a postgraduate diploma in viticulture & oenology at Lincoln University in New Zealand, where he graduated with honors. Kramer went on to craft wine in New Zealand before to moving to the Willamette Valley. Prior to joining WillaKenzie Estate, Erik crafted highly-regarded wines for Domaine Serene and Adelsheim Vineyard. He also holds a degree in geology from Florida State University, which he draws on today when considering the relationship between terroir and wine quality. When not at the winery, Erik enjoys spending time with his family at his wine country home in McMinnville
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.