Winemaker Notes
The blend is Gran Moraine 29%, Hyland 19%, Sequitur 18%, Dupee 12%, Jesse James 8%, Starling 6%, Zena Crown 4%, and Beaux Frères 4%.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Seamlessly complex and silky, with vivid raspberry and blueberry flavors accented by black tea and savory spice notes that dance elegantly toward refined tannins. Drink now through 2024.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley is a ripe, sexy, opulent wine, especially for the region. Tons of ripe cherries, black raspberries, flowers, and exotic spice notes give way to a medium to full-bodied, rounded, beautifully textured Pinot Noir that has a complex, layered style. Drink it over the coming decade.
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.