Winemaker Notes
Light red cherry in color, the 2018 Le Pré du Col Pinot Noir has effusive aromas of cherry and plum fruits, citrus oils, Chinese Five Spice, bouillon, meaty mushrooms, incense, and dark chocolate. The wine is elegantly framed with silky tannins, soft, plush plum and dark-berried fruit, spice flavors, and a succulent vein of juicy acidity on the finish. The use of no new oak barrels in 2018 allows this great site to shine with its natural spice and fruit flavors. This wine is approachable now for early enjoyment but should age well for the next decade or more.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Super complex and integrated aromas of sweet baking spices, fresh and poached cherries, flowers and wild herbs. The smooth-honed and balanced palate has such supple, enveloping fruit flesh. This is so deliciously fresh and composed. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Pinot Noir Le Pré du Col Vineyard has classic scents of fresh cranberries and blackberries with accents of tea leaves, woodsmoke and earth. The palate is delicately styled, seamlessly fresh and gently grainy with loads of nuanced flavors on the long finish.
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.”
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!