Winemaker Notes
To be a cluster of 667 on Ribbon Ridge in 2017! This wine is comprised entirely of clone 667—their oldest vines—that tend to offer the darkest expression of Pinot Noir. Look for the balance of fruit and savory that Pinot Noir loves to express during a perfect growing season.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pinot Noir Pioneer has a nose of spiced cranberry sauce, crushed boysenberries, red currants, licorice and cherries with earthy touches. The palate is medium-bodied, spicy, grainy and fresh with a long finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Identified as a single clone estate reserve, this is young and tart, layered with mixed flavors of berries, skins and citrus. It's a tangy wine with a hint of sweet ripe tomato. Some time in barrel adds cinnamon spice and a touch of toast.
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!