Winemaker Notes
Fruit quality, harmony and balance were key factors in the 2014 growing season. As fruit came in with incredible evenness and extraordinary concentration, 2014 will likely be a show stopping vintage. Elk Cove remains true to their goals as wine growers – looking to capture the beautiful, complex flavors that is signature of cool climate Pinot Noir.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Pouring a dark red-garnet hue, the 2014 Pinot Noir La Boheme displays aromas of ripe baked red plum, with loads of melding baking spices, dried porcini, and mossy earth. Full-bodied and generous, with ripe fruit, its sweet tannins expand through the palate and the long finish. It’s in a great place for drinking now or over the next few years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From vines planted in 1985 that tend to produce small clusters and small berries, the 2014 Pinot Noir la Boheme has a more broody and introspective nose than its peers: blackberry and wild hedgerow, tightly wound at the moment. The palate is medium-bodied with grippy tannin, the 15% whole cluster lending a subtle forest floor note, good density in the mouth with firm backbone on the finish. This deserves 3-4 years in bottle before you reach for the corkscrew, but it will be worth your patience.
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Vinous
Pouring a dark red-garnet hue, the 2014 Pinot Noir La Boheme displays aromas of ripe baked red plum, with loads of melding baking spices, dried porcini, and mossy earth. Full-bodied and generous, with ripe fruit, its sweet tannins expand through the palate and the long finish. It’s in a great place for drinking now or over the next few years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Still wrapped up tight, as are most of the 2014s from Elk Cove, this offers juicy fruit flavors of pomegranate and raspberry, supported by fresh acidity that promises some years of aging potential. This harmonious, flavorful wine should be drunk from 2018–2030.
One of the founding wineries of the Willamette Valley, family-owned and operated Elk Cove Vineyards was the first vineyard in what is now the Yamhill-Carlton AVA. Second-generation Owner/Winemaker and fifth-generation Oregon farmer Adam Campbell sources fruit from Elk Cove's six 100% estate-grown, sustainably farmed vineyard sites located across the northern Willamette Valley, specializing in Pinot Noir and cool-climate white wines. Elk Cove is named for the local herd of Roosevelt elk and the protective bowl shape of the property. Its tasting room is tucked into the foothills of the Coast Range, with spectacular views of the surrounding vineyards and mountains.
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.