Winemaker Notes
Margo, named after Colene’s great granddaughter, is comprised of selected vineyard blocks and barrels from our Estate. Lifted and high toned with great vitality and focus, fresh red and dark red fruit mingle on the nose. Supple, refined, and structured, dark cherry and savory notes are the highlight of this transparent, concentrated Pinot noir. Consume this gem now or over the next six to eight years.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Refined and well-structured, with expressive cherry, stony mineral and black tea flavors that build toward polished tannins. Drink now through 2024. 1,515 cases made.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Pinot Noir Margo is pale to medium ruby-purple with shaved cinnamon and dried leaves aromas over bright red cherry and cranberry fruit. Medium-bodied, it gives red and black berries and licorice flavors in the mouth with a light frame of grainy tannins, finishing long and spicy. 1,515 cases produced.
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.”
The Chehalem Mountains is a northwest-southeast span of several distinct mountains, ridges and peaks in the northern part of the Willamette Valley. Of all of Willamette Valley's smaller AVAs, it is closest to the city of Portland. Its highest summit, Bald Peak at an elevation of 1,633 feet, serves to generate cooler air for the rest of the AVA and its hillside vineyards. The region covers 70,000 acres but only 1,600 acres are planted to vines; soils of the Chehalem Mountains are a mix of basalt, ocean sediment and loess.