Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Pinot Noir Winemaker’s Selection spent nine months in a mix of seasoned and new French oak. Medium- to dark ruby-colored, the nose offers up spicy, toasty black cherry and black raspberry aromas leading to a dense, plush, dark fruit flavored wine with good complexity and concentration. There are no hard edges to this tasty effort which will drink well over the next six years.
Once known as Chateau Benoit, the winery focused on sparkling wines in its earliest incarnation. In 1999 the Benoits retired, the winery was sold, and the first Anne Amie vintage occurred in 2001. The bubbly is history and the estate now produces 14,500 cases of table wine from its 120 acres, 55 in production.
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.