Winemaker Notes
This Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is one of the biggest and richest in some time. Much of our prized 'Prestige' vineyard blocks went into the blend for this wine. Black Cherry, Marion berry, and spice aromas are concentrated around a tight mineral/earth/tar center. The flavors are sweet, big fruited, and built up with ripe, gripping tannin structure. The finish is what we all look for in Pinot Noir, long sweet with fruit and floral hints. This wine despite its value-price category will age well in to the first decade of the 2000's.
"Smooth and round, seductively plush but not overwhelming in flavor, keeping its musky cherry, plum and tobacco flavors in harmony as they sail into the long finish. Drink now through 2008."
-Wine Spectator "Smart Buy"
Twenty-five years ago, Argyle began making wine in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Since 1987, winemaker Rollin Soles and viticulturist Allen Holstein have teamed up to produce world-class method champenoise sparkling wines, barrel-fermented Chardonnay, and silky-textured Pinor Noir from low-yielding vines that are winery farmed on some of the best hillside slopes and elevations. Argyle wines have received a total of 11 Wine Spectator Top 100 designations - more than any other winery in Oregon. The Argyle wines represented on this list include sparkling wine, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, truly making Argyle one of the finest practitioners of the craft of elegant, long-lived winegrowing.
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.