Winemaker Notes
The 2014 Basalt Block shows the density of a warm year, but with more finesse bounding across the palate from this windy vineyard site. The nose is heavy with red fruits and exotic cardamom, star anise and Asian five spice aromas. It has a thread of pure fruit that flows from the front to the back of the palate.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Fresh and pretty wine with blueberry and mineral aromas that follow through to a full body, salty undertones and a long and flavorful finish. Deliciously salty aftertaste.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby-purple in color, the 2014 Pinot Noir Basalt Block opens with a powerful note of granite giving way to aromas of freshly sliced blueberries and crushed black cherries with accents of dried leaves, fresh pipe tobacco and hints dried flowers and peppercorn—this is still very youthfully coiled. Medium-bodied, it gives concentrated blue and black fruits in the mouth with pretty notions of flowers, spice and a strong mineral line. It’s held together with fine, grainy tannins and wonderful refreshing acidity to carry the long flavorful finish. Give it time in bottle.
Rating: 92+ -
Wine Enthusiast
At first austere, even severe in its tight, herbal focus, this wine nonetheless intrigues. The unique aromatics deftly touch on fennel, bitter herbs and wet rock. Tart cranberry and pomegranate fruits lurk below, and the wine takes a full 24 hours to open up, adding broader flavors suggesting craisins.
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Wine Spectator
Well-built if still a bit tightly wound, with cherry and black tea aromas and currant and mineral flavors that build tannins toward the finish.
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.”
Stretching southwest from the city of McMinnville, the AVA with the same name covers about 40,000 acres across 20 miles until it meets the Van Duzer Corridor. This corridor is the only break in the Coast Range whose gap allows the cool Pacific Ocean air to flow eastward into the Willamette Valley.
The Pacific's moderating winds hit McMinnville’s south and southeast facing slopes where cool-climate varieties—namely Pinot noir and Pinot blanc thrive on ridges at between 200 to 1,000 feet in elevation.
Soils here are primarily uplifted marine sedimentary loam and silt, with alluvial formations; McMinnville receives less rainfall than its neighbors to the east because it is situated in the rain shadow of the Coast Range.