Winemaker Notes
This wine has generous fruit on the nose showing classic black cherry cranberry and a touch of cedar. There is a umami like minerality in the mid palette that is like a frame on which the bright jolly rancher like berry character hangs. The finish is opulent with both fruit and cola with soft tannins that linger on the palette just long enough to make you want another sip.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Very attractive, freshly sliced strawberries and red cherries with a fresh-herb edge and a sleek, smooth build on the palate that holds gently creamy fruit, in the blueberry and dark-cherry zone. Supple, layered tannins and fresh strawberries to close. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Clare Carver’s hand-drawn label honors the winery’s farm pigs Sam and Rick, who had “a great life, one bad moment”. Bright fruit flavors of berry candy, cranberry and black cherry are backed with tongue-tickling acids. The balanced tannins push the big bold fruit flavors right on through the finish, streaked with cola
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Wine & Spirits
Lush and juicy as a bowl of sun-warmed cherries, this has just enough licorice depth of flavor and earthy tannins to back up its generous fruit. It could use a year in the cellar to knit; then serve with lamb.
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.