Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby-purple, the 2017 Pinot Noir Last Chapter opens with this cuvée’s signature reductive notes of tar and woodsmoke, with time giving up crushed red and black cherries, loamy earth, tobacco leaves and desiccated rose petals. It’s medium-bodied and silky with very pretty, bitters-laced fruits in the mouth. It has a firm, fine-grained frame and fantastic freshness on the finish.
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Wine & Spirits
The 2017 Last Chapter draws primarily from two vineyards: Stardance, in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA, and Witness Tree in the Eola–Amity Hills, both comprised of fractured basalt. It has a smoky vibe, with aromas of creosote, dark cherry and dark red soil leading into sleek, succulent cherry flavors hemmed in by sumptuous oak. This has the structure to age.
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Wine Spectator
Precise and refined, with cherry and pomegranate flavors that blend with dusky spice and dried herb notes, building tension toward fine-grained tannins. Best from 2021 through 2027.
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Wine Enthusiast
Lightly funky with leather and mocha highlights, this wine is focused on similar cherry cola flavors. Drink over the next two or three years.
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.