Winemaker Notes
The wine is a brilliant light ruby with sparkling garnet highlights. Leaping from the glass are smoky touches of oak laced with exotic spices and tart ripe wild cherry fruit. It is graceful and balanced on the palate with gripping wild red raspberry fruit flavors layered over hints of sweet tobacco, new leather and touches of just cracked vanilla beans. The finish is firm with a racy, tart acidity that makes the wine very lively and fresh bringing lightness of spirit to the rich fruit and oak flavors.
The elegant structure of this wine gives mouthwatering zest and a distinctive Oregonian style. While drinkable now, the firm structure and balance would suggest several more years of aging before reaching its peak.
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.