Winemaker Notes
This wine represents the vintage so well. It is deep red in appearance and incredibly complex on the nose with aromatics of grilled meats, black cherries, wisteria, chocolate cosmos flowers, cologne, and wood smoke. Layered and brooding, every return to the glass reveals something new. The palate is medium-bodied and full of loganberries, cocoa nib, oak spice, oregano, tar, and stem. The depth of this wine mirrors its impressive nose, showcasing the opulence achievable in the Dundee Hills. The tannins are lush, and the flavors are expansive and spiced. While robust and delicious, there is an elegance on the finish that renders it a complete and thoughtful wine.
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2023 Pinot Noir Bergström Vineyard displays a deep, jeweled ruby/magenta hue and has a more introspective profile. Notes of leather, sanguine, iron-rich earth, and cherry liqueur unfold from the glass. While it carries depth and power, it maintains the weightless feel that runs through the estate lineup. With ripe tannins, supple texture, and refreshing acidity, this is a wine worth cellaring. However, it’s already a pleasure to taste, and I imagine it will have a wide window for enjoyment over the next couple of decades. Rating: 98+
-
James Suckling
Savory and spiced, with a lot of earthy complexity, it offers wild berries, dried orange peel and subtle hints of cherries, chocolate and iodine on the nose. The palate is broad and encompassing, very textured and seamless, with a medium body and well-integrated tannins. Long, deep and complex.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Pinot Noir Bergström Vineyard has ringing aromas of red cherry, cranberry, violet, rooibos tea and spicy, ferrous undertones. The medium-bodied palate has a silky texture and fragrant, nuanced flavors. It’s balanced by mouthwatering acidity and has a very long, detailed finish.
-
Vinous
The 2023 Pinot Noir Bergström Vineyard is impossible to ignore, offering a playful bouquet of crushed cherries, dusty rose and tarragon, complicated by earth tones and a hint of sweet smoke. Lifted and graceful in style, it soothes the senses with fresh acidity and pretty red berry fruits as violet inner florals arch across the palate. A sour citrus twang punctuates the experience along with edgy tannins and a nuance of tart citrus.
-
Wine Spectator
Handsomely structured and tightly focused, this opens with rose petal aromas that lead to multilayered raspberry,cherry, tarragon and forest floor accents. Ends with fine-grained tannins.
Bergstrom Wines is a family-owned and operated artisan producer of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay which was started in 1999 by Dr. John and Karen Bergstrom, with the help of their son Josh Bergstrom and his wife Caroline. Josh is general manager, vineyard manager and winemaker and pulls his expertise from his education in Burgundy, France and his 14 years experience making wines in Oregon's Northern Willamette Valley. Bergstrom focuses on hand-crafting small lots of wines from their fice estate vineyards carefully chosen from fice of Oregon's six wine-growing appellations. All estate acreage is farmed biodynamically and all wines express the wonderful diversity of Oregon's many great terroirs.
Bergström Wines consists of five estate vineyards totaling 84 acres that span across four of the Willamette Valley’s best appellations: The Bergström Vineyard, Silice Vineyard, Winery Block, Gregory Ranch and Le Pré du Col. Each estate vineyard is farmed without the use of harsh chemicals, systemic or fertilizers, and the winery produces approximately 10,000 cases of ultra-premium and extremely sought-after wine each year, including two Chardonnays and nine different Pinot Noirs.
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.