Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All VintagesRipe, dark-cherry, blue-plum and black-fruit aromas, as we well as earthy notes, flowers and leafy herbs. The palate has a succulent core of powdery tannin that carries blue-tinged fruit flavors. Drink now.
The medium ruby-purple 2017 Pinot Noir Dundee Hills is slow to unfold to warm blackberries and red berries, gaining depth with an emerging perfume of roses, potpourri, Earl Grey tea leaves and woodsmoke. Medium-bodied and silky, it's concentrated and fresh with a long, nuanced finish.
Pleasing aromatics suggest brambly berries and mocha, and those components carry into the palate. There’s a touch of citrus in the supporting acidity, leaving a tangy impression in the finish, along with herbal phenolics and a finishing wash of vanilla and espresso.
At Archery Summit, they embrace traditional winemaking techniques as well as Pinot-centric technological innovations, enabling them to craft the very best wine from each vintage. Painstaking efforts including hand-farming and harvesting have helped them forge an international reputation for being one of the finest Pinot Noir producers in the world. Over the past 25 years, they have acquired five estate vineyards planted to 80 acres of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris. The winery is located in Dayton, Oregon in the Dundee Hills. The Archery Summit winery and estate vineyards in the Dundee Hills use sustainable practices and are Live Certified. Stop by for a visit!”
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.
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.”