Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A barrel selection of their preferred lots and barrels, the jeweled ruby-colored 2022 Pinot Noir Breaking Ground brings more intensity and depth, boasting aromas of pure red cherries, rosemary, roses, and a hint of licorice. Medium-bodied and appealing on the palate, it offers fine tannins, a bit more of a linear feel, refreshing, ripe acidity, and a pure, clean finish with good length. It’s going to drink well over the coming 6-8 years and should hold up over the coming 10 years if stored properly.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Pinot Noir Breaking Ground matured for 10 months in 28% new French oak barrels. It has alluring scents of raspberry, strawberry, blood orange, licorice, autumn leaves and dried herbs. The medium-bodied palate is concentrated and nuanced with perfumed flavors and generous but well-integrated oak spice. It’s framed by silky texture and bright acidity and has a long, layered finish.
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James Suckling
Savory and polished, showing cherries, dried cranberries, crushed rocks and a hint of spice. Sleek and fine-textured with vivid acidity and a spicy, juicy finish. Drink now or hold.
Established in 1971, Adelsheim is a family-owned and operated winery with estate vineyards located in Oregon's northern Willamette Valley. Over the past 41 years, the Adelsheim Vineyard estate has grown to include twelve exception vineyard sites throughout the Valley, totaling 237 acres. Company co-founder, David Adelsheim, has done work throughout the years to benefit both the Oregon and American wine industries: grape and wine research, wine labeling, industry education, and promotion. He is recognized for his "outstanding service" to the industry and has played a vital role in building the Oregon wine industry and establishing its reputation worldwide. Today, he leads a current generation of passionate staff devoted to leading the industry in crafting consistently transcendent wines.
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.