Winemaker Notes
The 2017 Abbey Ridge Pinot noir has aromas of cherry, pomegranate, cranberry, and spiced oranges mingling with straw, ginger and as always rose petals. A higher percentage of Pommard in this year’s blend introduces flavors of cracked pepper, black olive, and salumi. The front to back of the palate is seamless, with soft tannins, bright lively acidity, a long lingering finish and perfect moderate alcohol of 12.8%. At over 40 years of age, Abbey Ridge is one of the oldest and best vineyards in the state of Oregon.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2017 Cameron Abbey Ridge Pinot Noir is an excellent example of a well-balanced wine. TASTING NOTES: This wine is bright and zesty. Enjoy its aromas and flavors of red fruit and mineral notes with pan-seared salmon fillets. (Tasted: October 28, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.