Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Taut, tart and vividly expressive, bursting with red berry flavors and overtones of spice and tomato leaf. The finish persists with relish and clear minerality. Needs time to settle, but has plenty to offer. Best from 2016 through 2022.
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Wine Enthusiast
The aromatics immediately capture your attention, mixing baking spices with fennel, wet rock, and ginger cake. Compact, young, fresh fruit flavors suggest pomegranate, wild raspberry and very tart cherries. This is an acid-lover’s wine, with the structure to age for decades.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2011 Pinot Noir Basalt Block has lovely scents of green and white peppercorn, crushed shell and wet stone, crunchy blackberries and cranberries with an earthy undercurrent and potpourri hints. The palate is medium-bodied and slow to open, with oodles of minerally accents. It’s super juicy with very fine, grainy tannins and a long, fresh finish. This is extraordinarily fresh and has plenty of life ahead
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.