Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
By 2015, Jim Maresh was living on the Maresh property in the Dundee Hills and making wine at his own winery there. Production increased significantly to around 5,000 cases. Heat records set in 2014 were broken again in 2015. "I saw the trend there," Jim explains. "I had to change how I picked the grapes. So, starting in 2016, I implemented the al dente pick, which would define my style going forward." Although the reception of the 2014s and 2015s was positive, "They weren’t really my style," Jim explains. "I was making wine like I always did, but once these came out, I realized I needed to change something. I was determined not to make wine like 2014 and 2015."
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Wine Spectator
Refined and sensuous, with floral cherry and raspberry flavors, accented by black tea and dusky spice notes that build tension and structure on the lingering finish. Drink now through 2026.
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.