Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All VintagesThe club consists of Pinot Noirs that are curated from “coastal corners of the world.” The red hue on the label represents the color of the famed Jory soils of the Willamette Valley’s Dundee Hills. Spending 15 months in (25% new) French oak, adds depth and texture to this red. Black cherry tannins create a dry, dusty entry. Asian spice, dried heather, and red tea come in mid-palate. Damp earth and ripe strawberry lend character into a juicy finish.
El Pino Club adds an Oregon Pinot to its growing portfolio with this full-bodied and fleshy wine. A burst of ripe, fresh strawberry fruit fills the palate. It was aged in one-quarter new French oak, which balances out well and adds a streak of caramel as it rounds off the finish.
El Pino Club is for Pinot fanatics: people who love this fickle, funky grape that defies expectations and always surprises. The curated collection of exceptional wines in El Pino Club hail from the coastal corners of the world where the grape thrives, allowing Pinot lovers to see the world through the eyes of this wonderful little grape. To fully appreciate the range of Pinot Noir requires a journey, and the charismatic Pinot Noirs that make up El Pino Club are ready and willing guides through the world’s most acclaimed AVAs. To capture the fullest expression of terroir, each wine is entrusted to a winemaker expert in the nuances of their region’s Pinot Noir. The winemakers in ‘the Club’ are given creative license to artfully blend clones selected from their best estate vineyard blocks. Their passion and individual winemaking styles result in site-specific wines that showcase the best of their region’s Pinot Noir.
Every wine in El Pino Club is a unique and lovably- quirky character, bursting with personality, and undeniably true to itself. As individual cast members they are an ode to the lands and hands that produce them, and as an ensemble, they celebrate the full range and charm of this legendary varietal.
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.
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.”