Winemaker Notes
As always the Prelude is very approachable, but it will benefit from a little air to encourage its sweet and supple mid-palate. Aromas and flavors are more savory than purely fruity, with lively hints of blood orange, cranberry, and dried flowers.
This wine pairs well with mushroom risotto and the Vijay Iyer Trio.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This immaculately clean wine brings crystalline details into sharp focus. Pretty cherry fruit pops out, with supporting citrus. Those acid-driven flavors round off and resolve in a light, mineral-soaked finish.
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.