Winemaker Notes
Deeper ruby than the Beaux Frères Vineyard. A bit darker and more complex, this wine offers a plethora of Indian spices, black cherries, black currants, forest floor and a wisp of sweet wood smoke. Structured and richly tannic, it expands gracefully over the palate.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
This is a trademark, deeply rich impression with an unctuous, violet-flower layer, together with blueberries, cherries and sweetly toasty woody spices, as well as forest wood and fresh, leafy and sappy nuances. The palate has a very succulent, fresh and lithe, almost tangy feel, delivering such succulent, mouthwatering energy at the finish.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Pinot Noir The Upper Terrace takes time to come out of its youthful shell. It slowly opens to clay, blackberries and blueberries with touches of fragrant earth, tar and violets. The palate is medium-bodied and silky with full, layered fruits and bright, energetic acidity, and it finishes very long and lifted.
Rating: 95+
-
Wine Spectator
Poised and polished, this opens on a delicate note than dynamically builds structure and richness, offering vibrant raspberry, savory cherry and floral tea flavors that linger toward refined tannins. Drink now through 2029.
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!