Winemaker Notes
Equal and subtle parts floral and spice-driven, this wine shows rose hip, hibiscus and strawberry on the nose. The aromatics persist, with flint and confectionary bubbling to the surface. On the palate, there’s a boisterous but balanced blend of sweet and savory. Candied strawberry, flickers of oak and a juicy acidity are tied together elegantly by the tannins and spice that come from whole-cluster fermentation.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of spices and berries with some lemon zest, fresh mint and rose petals, following through to a medium body with fine tannins and a bright, vivid finish. Sustainable.
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Wine Spectator
Deeply structured and appealing, brooding with black raspberry, guava and savory spice flavors that build tension toward medium-grained tannins. Drink now.
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Wine Enthusiast
In past vintages the winery's Dundee Hills Vineyard designates have been accompanied by a more generic Willamette Valley cuvée. In this vintage a blend of estate fruit bearing the Dundee Hills AVA has been made. There's a mix of black fruits, black tea tannins and clean earth flavors. It's a medium-weight wine with a gentle fade. Give it another year or two of bottle age.
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.