Winemaker Notes
The Les Dijonnai Pinot Noir represents the best barrels from this warm site. In contrast with the Pommard clone bottlings, the Les Dijonnais Pinot Noir offers a more floral interpretation of the grape, often displaying hints of rose petal and meadow flowers.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Ethereal and expressively floral, with multilayered raspberry, rose petal and cherry blossom flavors, plus orange peel accents that build richness toward polished tannins.
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Wine Enthusiast
Mixing five different Dijon clones (hence the name), this tightly wound young wine is wrapped in earthy, herbal scents and textures. There’s a compact weave of red berry and pomegranate fruits, and further details from biodynamic farming, 30% whole-cluster fermentation, native yeasts and aging in one-third new French oak. It seems clear that a bit more bottle age will reveal more of the depth and detail currently bound up in this wine.
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!