Winemaker Notes
Aromas of black cherry, pine resin, and black currants dominate, with hints of cooking chocolate and cinnamon in the background. Flavors of black berries and dark chocolate play over the sinewy, taut structure of this wine with its mineral laden acidity and fine-grained tannins.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A beautifully composed wine from the outset, offering ripe dark cherries, swathed in assertively toasty complexity with wild herbs and bracken. This is really fresh with a handsomely savory thread. The palate has a smooth, sleek and polished feel with a seamless build of tannin that carries plenty of rich flavor into the defined and powerful finish. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pinot Noir Casteel has a pale to medium ruby-purple color. The nose features aromas of crushed cranberries and raspberries, rhubarb, black cherries and blueberry hints with nuances of violets, autumn leaves, dusty earth and bergamot. The medium-bodied palate is concentrated and spicy with chocolate-textured tannins, mouthwatering acidity and a long, layered, energetic finish. This is approachable right now and is utterly delicious.
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Wine Enthusiast
This estate-grown, barrel select reserve has a pleasing brambly character to the ripe berry fruit, along with scents and highlights of truffle and cola. It’s polished and ripe, though at lower finished alcohol than in past vintages. The balance and length, as with all of Ben Casteel’s wines, are superb.
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Wine Spectator
Polished and finely structured, with elegantly expressive raspberry, black tea and stony mineral notes that build tension toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2025.
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.