Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This aptly expresses the characteristics of wines from the McMinnville AVA. A steely, peppery, gun-metal streak runs up and down the spine, with tight, compact blue and black fruits, ripping acidity, firm tannins and a light suggestion of root beer. It's all in place in a wine that seems destined for a life of two decades or longer.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
Broad in structure, tangy in balance, with raging acidity playing against ripe cherry, blackberry and mineral flavors, persisting into the vivid, expressive finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Pinot Noir Gestalt Block comes from sedimentary soils over young intrusion basalt. It was picked October 10 and aged for 13 months in French oak, 27% new. It has a broody bouquet, a little denser than the Basalt Block: blackberry and briary first, then a touch of violet coming through. The palate is medium-bodied with a touch of burnt toast infusing the black fruit on the entry. Very harmonious, reserved in style with a masculine, reserved finish, this is another refined Pinot Noir from Brittan Vineyards.
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.