Winemaker Notes
Bright red in color. The youthful nose teems with sweet Hood strawberries, tart cherry, pipe tobacco, and subtle herbaceous spice. Incredibly approachable and fruit forward, its succulence is balanced with tart acidity and delicate structure. The presence of whole cluster tannin gives this elegant wine both character and bottle age-ability.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby-purple, the 2021 Pinot Noir Cumberland Reserve offers generous aromas of cranberry sauce, floral potpourri, blood orange and wafts of dried herbs. The medium-bodied palate is youthfully gregarious and focused on generous allspice flavors, although its chalky, tensile frame and long, latent finish suggest this has more to give with additional time in bottle.
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James Suckling
Fresh and crunchy pinot with aromas of fresh strawberries, peppercorns, green olives, freshly turned soil and rosemary stems. Lovely silky texture, yet firm too, with tight-grained tannins and bright acidity. Delicious balance of sweet fruit and savory earthiness. From biodynamically grown grapes. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Fresh and juicy yet well-structured, with vibrant cherry and cranberry flavors that take on dusky spice and black tea accents. Builds richness toward medium-grained tannins. Drink now through 2032.
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Wine Enthusiast
A burst of bright red cherries leads the way, followed by aromas like chalkboard dust, the clean marine saline of a fresh-shucked oyster shell lining and grated nutmeg. Raspberry fruit is joined on the palate by flavors of red apple, pear and cedar. Elevated acidity, restrained alcohol and firm tannins.
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Wine & Spirits
Bergstrom’s valley-wide blend is now estate grown (CK) and the better for it. This 2021 has a Beaujolais-like purity of flavor, with scents of strawberry and raspberry blossom, a light and silky texture and juicy acidity that contributes to its capacity to age.
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.