Winemaker Notes
Margo, named after Colene’s great-granddaughter, is comprised of selected vineyard blocks from our Estate. The 2022 Margo is bursting with vibrant darker fruit flavors, predominantly black cherry and raspberry, this wine offers a plush, broad palate with velvety tannins. Enjoy its lively character now, or allow it to develop complexity with age.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Keenly structured yet rich and polished, offering black cherry and raspberry flavors laced with black tea, river stone and dusky spice notes that gather tension toward medium-grained tannins. Drink now through 2033.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Elegant and lifted, the 2022 Pinot Noir Margo Estate shows off the delicate spice of cinnamon, roses, cranberries, and dried dusty earth. Medium-bodied and graceful, it offers fine tannins, and an even finessed linear feel, with a clean, stony finish. It’s highly appealing now and will age with ease over the next 6-8 years.
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James Suckling
A bright and refreshing pinot with red berries, dried grapefruit peel and hints of spices and pink peppercorns. The palate is supple and refined and nicely filled with vivid fruit. Succulent and zesty aftertaste.
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.