Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Pinot Noir Laurene is a barrel selection from the cellar and in this vintage represents around 150 barrels. It is matured in 20 to 25% new oak. Arron mentioned that he has noticed more fruit coming from blocks in the eastern sector of the vineyard being selected for this blend. This has a soft bouquet with red cherries, cranberry leaf, light undergrowth notes and a touch of autumn leaf. The palate is medium-bodied with a fine balance: intermingling red and black fruit, quite sappy in style and inducing fine salinity at the back of the mouth. This possesses a natural flow with a very appealing, Old World-influenced finish. This is very stylish and one of my picks from their current releases.
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Wine & Spirits
Laurène in 2012 gives a distinct impression of a generous vintage, as expressed in the hands of a French winemaker. The red cherry scents are lively and exuberant, leavened slightly by a dusty granular texture. After a day the texture takes on a pepper accent, and the wine feels more harmonious, cool and composed, awaiting further integration from some cellar time.
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Wine Spectator
Dark and spicy, with fine tannins and savory notes wrapping around a sleek core of blackberry, raspberry and floral flavors, gliding into a persistent finish. Built for cellaring. Best from 2017 through 2022.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
One of the world's finest and loveliest Pinot Noirs, that is a consistent, high quality performer, the 2012 Domaine Drouhin Laurène is a smashing success in every which way. Medium to deep garnet in color; aromatic with a bounty of ripe fruit aromas, let's just say wild strawberries and delicate flowers, some oak is woven into it as well; medium bodied, quite lavish but perfectly poised on the palate; dry, fine acidity, well balanced; bright red and blue fruits, with a nifty touch of sweet barrel; long finish, firm and juicy in the aftertaste. (Tasted: October 21, 2015, 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.