Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A little lean but some interesting blueberry and blackberry character with citrusy acidity underneath. Medium body and a straightforward finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Pinot Noir Basalt Block was picked at just 1.5-ton per acre from 26-27 September and on 3 October, matured for 12 months in 25% new French oak. It offers blackberry and bilberry on the nose, touches of crushed violet and later blackcurrant pastilles emerging. The palate has a sharp seam of acidity, very minerally and stony in style, masculine for a Pinot Noir with an almost saturnine finish that lingers long in the mouth. Saline and surly (in an attractive way), cellar this enigmatic Pinot Noir for a couple of years.
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Wine Spectator
Bright and tangy, with a peppermint edge to the red berry flavors, finishing with polished texture and a mineral note as the finish persists.
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.