Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
2014 was "a flashy vintage," Jim Maresh recalls. It was the warmest growing season on record at the time, although high temperatures in 2015 set new records. "This was back when I did not subscribe to the al dente pick," he continues. "Before that, I felt like if it’s a big, hot year you should hang and make a big, rich wine. My thoughts on that have changed." 2014 was also the year he began to notice the climate changing. "All of a sudden, the principles from 2005 to 2010 vintages no longer applied because there was a climate shift," he notes.
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.