Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Wild and expressive, bursting with crushed berries, orange peel, flowers and exotic spices, with touches of chili and iodine adding depth. Tense and structured, yet incredibly fresh and crunchy, with a vibrant, spiced energy. The mid-palate lingers with bright citrus and mineral nuances, leading to an elegant finish. Firm tannins add definition and frame. Drink or hold.
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Vinous
The 2023 Pinot Noir Dundee Hills excites the senses with a burst of dusty rose and autumnal spices that complement wild strawberries. Juicy to the core yet refined, it reveals depths of crisp minerality and bright red berry fruits that cascade across the palate. The finish tapers to a tart cranberry resonance that pinches at the cheeks as violet inner florals fade.
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Wine Spectator
Dynamic yet sleek, with brisk acidity framed by vibrant cherry, cranberry, green tea and dusky spice flavors that zip along the snappy finish. Drink now through 2033.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Pinot Noir Dundee Hills has inviting aromas of red and black cherry, plum, orange peel, charcuterie, lilac and dark spices. The medium-bodied palate is generous and perfumed with layered flavors. It has a soft, supple texture, juicy acidity and a long, spicy finish. It’s charming and dangerously easy to drink.
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.