Winemaker Notes
Opulent fruit notes of raspberry coulis, wild strawberry and fresh red cherry arise from the glass of this vintage of our Arcus Estate Pinot Noir, blending with a background of savory nori and cocoa powder. The palate offers generous flavors of concentrated raspberry, Oregon blackcap and blackberry, leading into notes of spice box and lavender incense. A viscous texture creates lasting impressions of ripe black fruit that melt gracefully into the dark chocolate finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A captivating bouquet weaves together scents of breakfast tea, citrus and barrel. The flavors offer a glorious mix of lemon, yellow plum, pie cherry, chocolate, coffee grounds and black licorice. It's complex and detailed all the way through a lingering finish, with all these diverse components beautifully integrated. Drink now–2025.
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Wine Spectator
Floral cherry and pomegranate aromas lead to refined raspberry and black tea flavors that finish with polished tannins. Drink now through 2023.
In 1993, Archery Summit set its sights on creating wines of real purpose in the Willamette Valley. Since then, the Dundee Hills winery has helped establish the region as the cradle of cooler-climate American wine. Winemaker Kim Abrahams and her team achieve bar-raising wines through hard-won instincts—the familiarity gained from many shared vintages and from tending vineyard sites they know intimately.
As responsible stewards of the land, Archery Summit engages in minimal-impact agriculture. Sustainability is a dynamic and vital part of growing wine—a practice that ensures both the industry’s future and the overall health of the trade. They practice sustainability wherever possible, from responsible farming in the vineyard to energy-sensitive approaches in the cellar.
Many of the vineyard sites are LIVE (Low Input Viticulture & Enology) certified, meaning they adhere to an internationally-acclaimed set of sustainability standards. These guidelines are site-specific and focus on strengthening the well-being of the vineyard through minimal spraying, careful clone selection, heightened biodiversity, and more. Archery Summit is committed to ensuring that the soils and biodiversity of each site remain as healthy and vibrant as when they first began cultivating them.
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.