Winemaker Notes
Its sweet earth and spice aromas always prevail, yet in this vintage they discovered a new bouquet of wildflower blooms — a welcome evolution, or perhaps a signature of the vintage. The palate shows hallmark depth and balance, with candied berry, granite, and a waft of expertly roasted coffee. Long, lithe tannins carry the composition to an electric finish. They noted several moments passed before full expression in the glass, promoting their strong suspicion of timeless cellar potential.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has beautiful aromas of raspberries, cranberries, blueberries, cherry pits, stones, red tea, lemon zest and some asphalt. It’s medium-bodied with finely knit tannins and bright, crunchy acidity. Racy, zesty and fruity. Some fresh mushroom at the end. Drink from 2024.
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Wine Spectator
Seduces you immediately, with expressive violet and dark raspberry aromas that open to polished and brilliantly structured blueberry, savory anise and tea flavors that take on richness on a long finish. Drink now through 2026.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2017 Pinot Noir The Upper Terrace offers inviting scents of crushed cranberries, red currants, orange oil, black tea leaves, earth, brown sugar and sweet spices with hints of dried flowers, autumn leaves and amaro, a very pretty interplay of sweet fruits and bitter notes. Medium-bodied, it floods the mouth with spicy fruits, finely grained and very fresh, finishing very long. Rating: 93+
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!