Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby-purple the 2017 Pinot Noir The Fire gives up very pretty scents of dried strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb with warm blackberries, fragrant earth, burnt orange peel, tea leaves and an earthy current. The palate is medium-bodied, silky and youthfully slow to unfurl, with a firm, grainy frame and great freshness, finishing nuanced.
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Wine & Spirits
Lush and satisfying, The Fire is Chapter 24’s ode to vines planted in volcanic soils. The wine leads with whole-cluster spice and plush red fruit, not so much dense as it is saturated with flavor. It’s warm and inviting, with dusty tannins that add heft and a chewy richness, giving this the stuffing to age.
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Wine Spectator
This is focused on a delicately brooding core of lively acidity and tannins that expands slowly, with snappy cherry, river stone and dusty anise flavors. Best from 2021 through 2029.
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Wine Enthusiast
Quite similar to the previous vintage, this offers black cherry fruit with chalky graphite. There’s a touch of barnyard, light enough to be a feature, not a flaw, and a streak of café au lait. 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.