Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2018 Pinot Noir Yamhill Cuvee has spicy aromas of conifer, potpourri and forest floor with a core of wild berry fruit. The medium-bodied palate is silky and refreshing with concentrated flavors and a long, spicy finish.
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James Suckling
This has innately complex style with a spicy edge and plenty of rich red-cherry aromas as well as earthy tones and forest wood. Some sappy undergrowth, too. The palate has neatly articulated tannins and flavors that run to quite deep, darker-fruit tones. Rich finish. This is convincing. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is an exceptionally aromatic year for this wine, which jumps from the glass with spicy raspberry and cherry fruit. In the mouth it's sharp and a bit peppery, with some bite to the tannins. Aerate it if drinking over the next couple of years, or give it a bit of cellar time to smooth it out further.
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Wine Spectator
Taut and structured, with black cherry, bay leaf and dusky spice flavors that build toward broad-shouldered tannins.
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.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.