Bethel Heights Aeolian Pinot Noir 2017
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Winemaker Notes
The goal of the Aeolian is always refinement. While certain parts of the estate lend themselves to more boisterous or rustic examples of Pinot noir depending on the vintage, for the Aeolian in each vintage we are trying to find the blend that best expresses our ideal of Bethel Heights purity, elegance, grace and balance.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The alcohol is a point or so lower than 2016’s, but if anything the wine is even better. Dusty aromatics conjure up soft scents of barnyard and earth. The flavors are built upon ripe cherry fruit and fine tannins, streaked with tea, tobacco and graphite. There’s just enough lemony acidity to complete a perfectly structured wine that’s ready already, but that can be cellared for up to a decade.
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Wine Spectator
Shows grace and presence, with compelling and complex raspberry, dusky spice and orange tea flavors that build richness toward polished tannins. Drink now through 2026.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pinot Noir AEolian "is usually a blend of our younger fruit," says winemaker Ben Casteel. "I'm curious about massal selection because, at some point, we will have to replant half the property. So, I'm interested in seeing what those young vines can do on the same soil." Pale to medium ruby-purple in color, it opens with bright, inviting blueberries, boysenberries, crushed black cherries, baking spice, warm earth, tree bark, dried violet and potpourri. It’s medium-bodied and lushly fruited in the mouth with lots of spicy nuance, grainy and fresh with a long, layered finish. So classy! This is approachable now but has the fruit and structure to age very well. Rating: 93+
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United by our interest in wine, in 1977 Ted Casteel, Pat Dudley, Terry Casteel, and Marilyn Webb abandoned the academic life and, together with Pat’s sister Barbara Dudley, bought 75 promising-looking acres northwest of Salem, with 14 acres of newly planted cuttings in the ground. We moved to the vineyard in 1978 (except Barbara, who was in California working as a lawyer for farmworkers with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board) and started a new life. In 1979 we cleared and planted 36 more acres. In 1981 we harvested our first crop and started home winemaking in Terry’s basement. In 1984 we produced our first commercial vintage of 3000 cases: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Gewurztraminer, all Estate Grown.
For the first thirty years Ted was responsible for managing the vineyards and Terry made the wine. Pat and Marilyn shared responsibilities for marketing and business management. Over thirty years we grew our wine production to 10,000 cases, and made common cause with our fellow pioneers to establish the Willamette Valley as the home of New World Pinot Noir.
Meanwhile, five cousins grew up knowing the tidy rows and wild hidden places of Bethel Heights as their backyard playground, science lab and adventure park. Now they have taken their places as co-owners, co-workers, and stewards of this place.
In 2005 Ben Casteel (son of Terry and Marilyn) took over from his father as Winemaker at Bethel Heights. In 2007 Jon Casteel (second son of Terry and Marilyn) launched Casteel Custom Bottling, a mobile bottling company that serves wineries throughout Oregon, including Bethel Heights of course. Mimi Casteel (daughter of Ted and Pat) worked with the family at Bethel Heights until 2017 when she started farming her own vineyard at Hope Well, and launched her Hope Well Wine project. Jessie Casteel grew up among the vines at Bethel Heights, but now lives in Chicago. Jessie brings a creative outlier perspective to the direction of the family business, and serves as our ambassador in Chicago and points east.
Now there is a new generation of cousins – ten so far – who all come home to Bethel Heights for family occasions, to eat the blackberries and taste the grapes and pat the goats and walk through the ravine to Mr. Hatcher’s haunted house. This place is now for them too.
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.”
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.