Winemaker Notes
A true snapshot of the Ribbon Ridge AVA! Our estate vines pair perfectly with neighboring vines from Armstrong and Lichtenwalter vineyards. Enjoy notes of boysenberry, cinnamon, and dried tobacco.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby, the 2017 Pinot Noir Perspective is scented of warm blackberries, cranberry sauce, cinnamon and orange peel with notes of mushroom, pipe tobacco and earth. It’s medium-bodied, grainy and intense with spicy fruits and a long finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
This blend is drawn from a number of sites scattered along Ribbon Ridge. Rich berry and cherry fruit, buoyed by tart citrus flavors, show excellent ripeness and balance. There’s a light dusting of cocoa and coffee grounds across the finish. A very fine value. Editors’ Choice
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.”
Ribbon Ridge is a regular span of uplifted, marine, sedimentary soils (called Willakenzie), whose highest ridge elevations twist like a ribbon. An early settler from Missouri named Colby Carter noticed this unique topography and gave the region its name in 1865—though it wasn’t declared its own AVA until 140 years later, in 2005. The AVA is enclosed by mountains on all sides between Yamhill-Carlton and the Chehalem Mountains, and is actually part of the larger Chehalem Mountains AVA. Its soils have a finer texture than its neighbors with parent materials composed of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. Given its presence of natural aquifers in this five square mile area, most vineyards are actually easily dry farmed!