Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
The wine marries place and vintage with effortless grace. Its generous dark cherry and plum scents flow into a seamless, to-the-rim fullness of flavor, grounded by a dark basalt minerality, which seems to give the wine energy and propulsion. The tension between fruit and structure, between grip and give, makes this wine the sort to age—or enjoy now with grilled salmon.
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Wine Spectator
Smooth, round and expressive, light-footed but bursting with currant, blackberry and floral flavors, hinting at mint and wet stone as the finish lingers effortlessly against fine-grained tannins.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Combining fruit from several sweet spots on their property (and reflecting two Dijon clones and a bit of Wadenswil), the Bethel Heights 2010 Pinot Noir Casteel Reserve displays a delightfully juicy and flower-bedecked amalgam of red and black currant, elderberry and cherry, as well as a polished feel and saliva-inducing undertone of nut oils and salted, fatty roasting pan scrapings that send my salivary glands into palpitations. And there's a real ping of energy in this wine’s dynamic and sustained finish.
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.